Plants in the City
by Lilithisbitter
Summary: Elseworlds. The Grey City is a polluted wasteland on a rundown earth. A pair of Plant Twins lives there. One will save the city and one will destroy it. The question is... which one?
1. Grey Sky Mornings in the Grey City

Plants in the City 

An Elseworlds Adventure of "Epic" Portions

By Sailor Lilith-chan

Author's Note: Alternate Universe are known for make inhumans humans and putting them in high school or so that is what we know. Elseworlds is a comic book creation that takes the heroes and puts them in a different time. In other words, Wonder Woman remains an Amazon and not some ordinary student who happens to have the name of Diana Prince. Vash and Knives will remain Plants and brothers. The setting is Earth, the time is the future. And this is the tale of the cast in a modern day setting. Pairings may be possible Wolfwood/Milly, even some pairings of the same sex kind. Odd numbered chapters will be first person memoirs from Wolfwood and even-number chapters will be story. And I promise to finish up my other stuff. Hopefully. "Letters from the Wasteland" and "Jersey City Blue" need to be finished and I need to start "Sanity Crackers" and I have others works in progress. Oh, and Leblanc is AnonymousTrigunOtaku's provided name for Midvalley.

I. Grey Sky Mornings in the Grey City

My name is Nicholas D. Wolfwood and I'm a minister of the Episcopal Church of St. Marks of Grey City. It's a living, but not much of living. I rather call myself a minister than a priest. Mostly because most people associate priests with the Catholic Church, ya' know?

So I got up in the early hours of the day. I'm really not a morning person, but the sky goes a little pinkish before going to the grey of the sky like everyday in this sprawling Mega-ultra-superduper-city. Than I go back to sleep for another few hours.

Hey, I told you, I'm not a morning person! What do you want out of me?

Vash tells me that the sky used to be blue. Which is before he starts lamenting his lost to a car crash first love who was in a way like his mother (creepy Vash, very creepy) and I have to perk him back up by driving him over to the nearest donut shop and ordering him three dozen donuts.

Vash, whose full name is Vash Alexander Saverem by the way, knows these sorts of things. He is one hundred and thirty-three after all. And if you don't believe me, look at his driver license. And if you still don't believe that someone looking just twenty-four could be that old, well, Vash is a Plant Angel. A Freeborn, one-hundred percent, immortal Plant Angel. My great-grandma kept articles of the first freeborn Plant births.

There were three of them. A little girl and a pair of nearly matched twin boys. Vash, his brother Knives, and the little girl Tessla. Not born at the same time. Tessla's a year older.

Now over a century later, Vash tells me that Tessla is the corporate owner of a huge conglomerate and Knives is a hermit. Now, you're probably asking how could only one of the first Freeborns go nutty when mental illness is an epidemic among Freeborn Plants.

Who said that Tessla and Vash were all right?

Official prognosis from their medical records: Tessla has obsessive-compulsive disorder, Knives has Schizophrenia, and Vash is a bipolar. And a lush. Vash, I mean, not the other two.

Speaking of which, I never did figure out how someone could look at a squalling newborn they pulled from a Plant Bulb and say, "I'll name you, Knives."

Maybe that Rem Saverem of Vash's was an airhead. Don't let him hear that I said that. He'd bash out my teeth if he heard me say anything about his precious "goddess". He's got a shrine for her in his top-floor penthouse that is paid for him by long-time friends of the Saverem family. The Polos. Max-Simon Xylise Polo happens to be close friend of his. The Max-Simon who does weather reports for the five o'clock and six o'clock news for Channel Eleven, KMAX. In short, Vash is a trust fund kid and doesn't have to work a bit. Meanwhile, I had to pay my way through the seminary working my hands to the bone and Vash had everything handed to him on a platter. Bastard.

Don't get me wrong, Vash "the Stampede" Saverem is one of my best friends. He always knows where the best bars in town are and if you need a mix CD made he'll burn one up on his computer in the second bedroom he never uses. I looked in there once, it looked like something out of a Sci-fi Movie. Weird.

As I'm admiring the sunrise and preparing to climb into bed the phone rang. I picked it up. "Yeah, Wolfwood residence." Someone sniffled into the phone. I recognized that sniffle anywhere. "Vash… for the love of God, did you remember to take your morning dose of Lithium?"

"No."

I smacked myself in the head. "Tongari," the nickname I had baptized him with due to his broomstick like upsweep of a hairdo came out of my mouth easily as ever, "Do I have to call you in the morning to remind you to take your meds?"

The next time he spoke, he sounded a bit indignant. "I hate the way they make me feel. No sex drive." He paused. "So I flushed them down the toilet."

"What?"

I tried walking over to the couch and sitting down, however the stupid attached to the wall corded phone could only be stretched so far. It snapped out of out my hands and sling shot across the small combo living-dining room and made a dent in the wall. I howled and than screamed every curse I knew and some I think I made up on the spot. I picked up the phone. "Did I call at a wrong time?" Vash squeaked.

"It's not you," I sighed, trying to prevent Vash from bursting out in tears. It at times looked comedic and like something out of an Anime, "It's my stupid effing phone."

"I said that I could get you a cell phone," Vash practically crooned, "Remember, I said I would."

Yeah I remember. And you're not the only one. Midvalley Leblanc, my old lover, kept trying to give me a new apartment where the mice and other vermin are nonexistent. God, it makes when want to give up Bisexuality and just become plain straight. "Damnit Vash, I don't need your Immortal Plant charity. I'm doing just fine on my own." Something crawled over my bare foot; I shuddered and started hunting for a pack of cigarettes.

"I could always donate money to your church," he offered.

I found a pack with three cigarettes still in it. I lit it and inhaled sweet cancer. "What makes you think our church is in need of money?"

"Because I've seen it." Ouch, score one for the Immortal Plant Boy in his fancy uptown penthouse. "Wolfwood, are you smoking?"

"Nope."

Vash's voice turned stony on me. "Don't lie to me," he warned, "I know when you are."

How does he do that? "Fine," I said, taking another long drag on my cigarette, "I am."

He audibly sighed on the phone. "I wish you wouldn't smoke."

I was right back with a snappy comeback. "Well, my friend, I wish you wouldn't drink."

"My liver is immortal," he said after a few minutes, "Your lungs are very mortal."

"Aww come on and lighten up," I said, "I think Grey City will kill me first."

"It's called Morningstar," he sighed, "Anyway, I'm going to see my brother this afternoon."

I snickered. "Which one?" He has thousand of brothers, more bulb-bound than the small handful of freeborn boys. I knew he was talking about Knives, but I loved to rile him up. "Gotta be more specific."

"Knives," he snapped, before clearing his throat, "He's got a boyfriend slash lover now and he wants me to meet him."

"How can he meet another person?" I asked, fingering the hole in the wall and visualizing my security deposit flying out the window, "He never goes outside."

"He does at night," Vash chirped, much more cheered up, "I'm meeting him this afternoon. Coming along?"

"I met your twin only once and that was enough," I said, snuffing out my cigarette and wondering if I could plaster up that hole in the wall before management noticed. "I'm going to have say no."

"Oh. Well, talk to you later. Carpe Diem."

"I'm going back to sleep."

He hung up the phone with a click. Sighing, I walked over to the small single bedroom and slumped onto the mattress covered by a few blankets and dirty clothes. Sighing, I burrowed under them and found my pillow. I closed my eyes and found that I was wide-awake.

Carpe Diem Vash had said to me before he hung up. Thanks to him, I was wide-awake and I bet he knew it. I think that was the reason I was in the church before noon. And I have to thank him and curse his name because that might have been the start of all our problems. Or not. I still don't know.

…to be continued.


	2. Traffic

Author's Notes: The next chapter of Plants in the City as a Christmas Eve present from me to all of you. Remember to leave a review on what you liked as well as didn't like about this chapter. After this a Wolfwood POV chapter and next we introduce you to everyone's favorite human-hater and his human-loathing human. 

II. Traffic

Meryl Stryfe of the Bernardelli Insurance Society and her partner Millie Thompson worked on commissions. She worked in an important office in Morningstar City (also known as Grey City to many) and by God, she had worked to be respected. She was an important employee, highly valued, sent to insure a highly valuable man. If said man were to accept insurance, the company would benefit and so would she.

She was also stuck in the worst of the worst traffic the Grey City had to offer.

"Darn," she slammed her hands on the steering wheel. "Why now of all times?"

Millie climbed back into the car. Traffic flow being nonexistent she was able to run to the nearest drive-through and get breakfast. Neither had been able to eat a bite that morning, Meryl stopping by the Thompson residence early to rouse Millie out of bed. She remembered Millie's mother standing outside, holding a skillet full of bacon in one hand and wielding a spatula sword-like in the other. "Don't you want to stay for breakfast?" Ms. Thompson had asked, holding up the pan for emphasis.

"No, Ms. Thompson," Meryl said, pushing Millie in the direction of her bright white four-door sedan. "But I'll be here for dinner."

"Wonderful," Ms. Thompson said, "I'll set an extra spot at dinner table."

Now, two hours later, Meryl wondered if skipping breakfast with the Thompsons had been such a bright idea. Her mouth watered as she thought of crispy bacon, buttery scrambled eggs, and perfect coffee just the way she liked it with no cream and no sugar. Millie handed her a Styrofoam cup. Meryl held it up and inspected the logo. "McDonalds? What? No Starbucks?"

"Sorry Meryl," Millie apologized, "But this was all there was near us."

Meryl took a swig of the watery tasteless swill. Just as foul as ever which explained why the temperature of the coffee was beyond volcanic. Her poor tongue gave a burst of protest at being abused so. "It's not your fault," she wheezed as for the first time in thirty minutes the traffic moved.

Her partner took a sip of her orange juice before shoving her whole McGriddle sandwich into her mouth. "Well, it's no pudding," Millie said, which came out more like 'mumble mumble mumble'. She swallowed the entire sandwich down. It would have looked impressive only on a normal sized woman and Millie was a giantess. At least in proportion to her senior partner. "Ooh, look, Meryl," she said pointing, "Traffic is letting up."

"I see," Meryl said before patting the dashboard of her beloved car, "Come on, Thomas. Let's get us a commission."

The car's engine gave a few sputters before dying.

Meryl stared at the car as if trying to will it back to life by the sheer force of her will. Finally she turned off the car and tried to restart it again.

Nothing.

She looked up at the heavens and swore she heard God laughing.

ooo

Where his brother lived was known for being one of the worst sides of the city to live in. It was somehow both greyer and more polluted than the area he lived in. Vash sighed, not looking forward to that long drive. He sighed. The driver of the rented limo, Brad, happened to be one of his favorite drivers. Even if Brad thought Vash was shoehorning in on his girl. "I'm really glad you guys will pick me up, rain or shine." Nothing. Vash frowned, then cheerfully smiled, "I asked for you personally, since you are the best driver… ever."

Brad turned the rear mirror to see him better. "Look," he groused, "I don't do this because I like you, I do this because it pays good. Got me?"

"Crystal clear," Vash squeaked softly, keeping his gaze outside as Brad maneuvered the limo through morning traffic.

Something caught his eye. Two women, sitting on the hood of their car. A small one with short black hair and white clothes. Even her ankle length cloak, her sole item against the constant cold nip of the city was white. The giantess of a woman beside her wore clumsy men's attire that worked with her almost stringy looking hair. Shame she didn't brush it, she would have been prettier if she did. "Oh, oh, oh!" Vash tapped on Brad's shoulder while waving at the tinted window at the same time.

"What is it now?" Brad said, trying to ignore Vash. He already had to deal with his crush Jessica babbling how Vash was God's gift to the world. He really didn't need to deal with Vash himself.

"Stop the car! Stop the car!" he then paused, thought about it for a minute and continued, "Stop the limo! Stop it now!"

"And why should I?" Brad snapped back, feeling both snarky and ill at ease.

"Because I pay your salary!" Vash raged enough to make Knives proud, as he pounded on the dividing glass. Normally made to withstand bullets, it crumbled under Vash's touch.

The limo stopped a few seconds later.

ooo

Meryl had many ideas on how her day would get worse. Comet could come down and crush them all. One of the hidden weapons under her cape would fall loose followed by the other forty-nine Derringers. Millie would talk to the wrong person and be a little to honest. Limo for no reason would stop and back up to meet them. Oh great, she thought as she dusted off the skirt of her dress and black tights, just what I needed. Someone thinking I'm homeless.

One of the tinted windows in the back rolled down and he stuck his head out. She didn't know who He in question was save that he had bright green eyes behind yellow tinted sunglasses and blonde hair which for some reason he decided to brush straight up into a hairstyle that made heavy use of hair-gel. And he had an earring and from what Meryl could see of him, he was wearing a red coat. Methodically she stored all this information away in her head and prepared her best greeting in question.

Millie on the other hand beat her to it. Bouncing up and down in a way that no one would expect a woman of her size to do, she chirped, "Wow, Mister, you have a big and nice shiny car. Do you have a phone in there? My partner and I… well our car broke down and…"

Meryl sighed, "You do not need to give our information to a complete stranger."

Trust Millie to strike up a conversation with someone she barely knew. Then again, Millie's habits were why she had the younger woman as a friend. "Why don't we have introductions?" she asked, looking from the smiling young man to Meryl and back again.

Meryl straightened herself to her full and yet not impressive height. "I am Meryl Stryfe and this is Millicent…"

"Millie."

"Millie," Meryl corrected, glancing at Millie quickly, "Thompson. We are members of the Bernardelli Society and we are in a very big jam which I doubt that you could handle."

"And what is this situation?" the man asked, flipping up his shades before blowing a quick bubble. What kind of man had a beauty mark anyway? she found herself asking. "You sure I can't help?"

"Not unless you have a phone in there," Meryl began, but Millie once again piped up.

"Excuse me for asking, but do you know a Mister Vash Saverem? Mister Bernardelli asked us to give him an insurance policy."

The man actually stuck his whole upper torso out the window. "Know him?" he chirped, eyes wide with obvious interest as he cracked his gum, "I am him!"

Meryl gave "Vash" a rather doubting looking. "You sure?"

"I am," he insisted, withdrawing back into the limo, "But are you sure you are just going to sit around there with your busted car all day? I mean I can call a tow truck, but I don't think you would want to wait the six hours it takes to get here."

"Six hours," Millie repeated as she looked at her senior, "Ma'am, I need to eat and go tinkle during that time."

Meryl sighed, "Fine. But make any wrong moves and I swear to god, you'll rue the day you were born a man."

The door opened. "That's a word I haven't heard people use in awhile," Vash said, "Rue. You must read a lot. Though I never met a woman with derringers in her cape. Nice tough." He grinned. "That goes double for your friend's stungun."

Stunned, Meryl climbed into the limo. She could hear her partner say, "Wow, how did you know?"

"Lucky guess."

…to be continued.


	3. As Red as Crimson Nail

Author's Note: Yeah, another Wolfwood chapter. My hands hurt. But yay for me. Any errors in spelling will eventually be found and corrected. Enjoy.

III. As Red as Crimson Nail

Wonder what I did after Vash gave me that rude awakening? Well, first of all I tried to get back to sleep. Sleep didn't come at all, so I spent thirty minutes smoking a cigarette as I watched the sky turn from one shade of grey to another grey shade. Bastard. At least Vash could have waited before he woke me up.

I ended up calling Vash several choice words including many variations of the word penis. So sue me, I had to be crude. Some of us don't know several languages to cuss in.

This by the way was the week it all began. And it centered around a group of five dozen plantlings. What are Plantlings you might ask? As it so might happen, I'm not really in the mood to be telling you and once I get around to telling you why you will understand. All right, I'll tell you. Plantlings are Freeborn Plants under the age of two.

I went to the church and spent the morning in the parish hall, sipping weak coffee and trying to do a two week old crossword someone had left behind. It was going to be one of those days. I could feel it in my gut. Like I had gargled a dozen bags of nails chased by a vat of acid. There were probably worse ways to feel and the dozen bags in my stomach were the least of my concerns. The fact that bills were pilling up and I was too proud to give Vash the Agnostic the knowledge that I needed help was one of the things that kept me smoking by the pack.

Now what in the hell was three across? The fact that I shouldn't have cared what the capital principality of district eight of the Grey City didn't matter. I chewed the pen in my hand and thought of pulling out my pack of cigarette and having a nice long smoke. I even had reached in my blazer for my battered lighter when I spotted Livio entering the parish hall. He wore a lumpy grey sweater the exact same ugly color as his hair. It (the sweater not his hair) was covered with small clumps of yarn. Obviously, Lazlo was nowhere in sight.

Dealing with a person with multiple personalities is hard. Livio, crybaby that he is, was the easy person to deal with. Lazlo had to be kept away from the orphans. I didn't know what he would do to one of them and personally, I didn't want to know what he was capable of it. Despite the lumpy sweater, Livio was inhumanly strong. So was I, although I didn't know what the reason for that was.

"You shouldn't be smoking," he said, picking at one of the loose threads on his sweater.

I squeezed my eyes shut until I could see sparks at the corners. "Just making sure my lighter is still there."

"Is it?" Livio asked.

The lighter, battered as it was, had been a present from Vash. It looked good before I stomped on it a few times. Lame thing didn't light most of the time. "Yeah," I said, "It is." I paused, removing my hand from the lighter and folded up the crossword. That goddamned three across would have to wait. "So, what do you want?"

Livio dropped his voice to a whisper, "Snacks."

I blinked and straightened up much to the protest of several muscles in my lower back. "What do snack have do with anything?"

Great. Livio the crybaby's eyes started watering over, magnifying the wrinkles near his eyes. Great, the man is twenty-nine, yet he can't keep from acting like the world is going to end if someone talks to him in a firm tone of voice. Why me? I mouthed to myself. This was going to be long morning.

I snaked an arm around Livio's harder than concrete shoulder and tried not to look disgusted as he blew his nose on my sleeve. Jesus Christ, I didn't know anyone could produce that much snot. "Um, so, Livio… what's this about snacks?

Sniffle, sniffle went Livio, "For the orphans."

"Okay… so?"

"There are none."

Sigh. "Great, just, great. I thought you had bought a new shipment."

"I think Lazlo ate them all. He's a mean person like that."

"Okay," I said, trying to wipe that wad of snot off my coat sleeve, "Dammit, Livio, could you be less of a baby for once?" He looked at me with watery eyes. With Vash and his child-smooth face I could actually feel sympathy for the guy. Livio, on the other hand, I wanted more than anything to slap and tell him to grow a spine and a nice set of balls. "How about I go and give you some money and you go down and buy some cookies and some juice?"

"I can do that," Livio said, wiping his eyes with his ratty sweater, "I can be down to the store and back in about thirty minutes."

I opened my wallet and pulled out a balled up wad of bills. I picked at the ball until it unraveled to become five ones and a twenty. "Buy something with that."

He took the bills from my hand and stared at them. "That not enough for fresh cookies."

I rolled my eyes. "Just get the stuff in the aluminum bags and some of that powdered drink mix."

"But… but…"

"Kids ain't gourmets," I drawled lazily, "Just, just go, Livio. I'm sick of your face."

Livio looked like he was going to cry again. The door slammed behind him. Then it opened again, letting a tall woman glide in. She was wearing some fur stuff against the perpetual cold that Grey City is known for and a little pill box style hat. "You," she said in a voice too low to belong to any woman, "You Nicholas D. Wolfwood?"

"Umm…"

"Whatever," she sighed, peeling off her coat, revealing her turtleneck sweater and long slim fitting skirt.

I noticed she had absolutely no tits to speak of as well as an Adam's apple. "Great," I said, "Just what I need right now… a drag queen."

"Transvestite," she… correction… he said, scornful little smile on his lips.

I cleared my throat. I really wanted a cigarette right now. "There's a difference?"

He opened his mouth, perfectly covered in red, red lipstick. The kind that's two shades away from fluorescent. "About three tons of make-up," he said, holding out a gloved hand, "I'm Elendira T. Crimsonnail."

I blinked. "So?"

"So," Elendira said, "My employer, Mr. Millions needs your help."

…to be continued.


	4. Pieces of History Part One

Author's Notes: A letter from Rem Saverem and after that another Wolfwood chapter. I had a lot of fun writing this.

IV. Pieces of History Part One

From archive klx19, a letter from Rem Saverem to a Captain Joseph Cruz of the Air Force. This letter was dated three days before death. Also included is Captain Cruz's response.

ooo

To: Joseph Cruz

From: Rem Saverem

Dear Joey,

Been awhile since we've been together. First with Project Seeds and we all know all that fell through. Don't worry. : ) I'm sure you've would have made a first rate ship captain. Alex would have been proud. Come to think of it, we haven't seen each other since Tessla... 

Well, anyway, how is she anyway? Knives expressed great concern over the fact that she was very thin. I reassured him that Tessla was ill a lot as a child, but there was a look in his eyes... like he knew! What if he knew, Joey? I kept the records under triple encryption, but what if he was THAT smart? No, no, I've seen his brother as well as him break through encryption after encryption, but Tessla wrote that encryption and the only ones who know that are you, me, Steve, Bill, Mary, and Rowan. There's no way Tessla could have given him the fifty codes needed to break encryption on her own report and my file is still encrypted.

Tell me that I'm paranoid, Joey.

We really shouldn't have the done the things we did to her. I can tell by the way she looks at me that she loathes me and wishes me dead. Or maybe I'm reading too much into this.

I like to think that taking care of the twins is somehow going to be my penance for my sins. Remember, I poked and prodded Tessla just as much as our team of researcher. It was only when she developed bone cancer and had to have a leg amputated that I protested. I want Vash to think I am the good guy (gal?) for now. Someday, I will tell him.

Oh, Vash has a bit of a cold so I'm keeping an eye on him. The twins tell Tessla to stay healthy because they really enjoy having an older sister. Well, I'm rambling again. Let's meet in a week or so. I'll bring the boys on by. I hate the thought of Tessla taking the taxi alone. She's such a frail girl, something might hurt her.

Well, let's hope to arrange a meeting.

Love,

Rem

ooo

To: Rem Saverem

From: Joseph Cruz

Dear Rem,

You are slightly paranoid. And rambling too, but I can forgive you for anything. Yeah, keep an eye on Vash. We don't know Plants that well and there are only three "freeborns" in the world. My file is still locked so check with B, M, R, and S for confirmation on their line. The phone book is a little out of date so you can call me if any of their numbers don't match up, because I have Phonepal service and that's extremely up-to-date.

Yeah, a visit from you would be nice. Or a phone call. Have the twins really kept you THAT busy?

Stay well,

Joey.

...to be continued. 


	5. Mission

Author's Notes: Woo-hoo, a chapter while I'm not feeling good. Forgive the spelling errors, I'll correct them when I feel better.

V. Mission

Ever spend two hours in a mag-lev car going from area of the city to the other? Don't. For some reason the things smell like stale sex and cat urine. The instant we were in the vehicle, I began to wonder why I had gone with him in the first. The last thing I remember was him asking me to give his boss a hand and the next thing I know, I'm in a pill shaped car with a vain she-male.

Yeah, Elendira is one vain whatever he is. Trust me when I tell you what happened next.

Immediately, Elendira tucked his oversized suitcase behind his legs and began putting on lipstick. "I don't do people if I don't know their gender." Just to piss him off, I lit a cigarette. Always riled Vash up when I did that in his presence. "How do I know you haven't had that cut off?"

Elendira blotted his lips. "You don't," he said, looking at me, before frowning, "But as it is, this body," he gestured to his frame, "Is very male."

"Oh," I said, puffing away at my cigarette. I could hear Vash whining in my how I would get cancer or some other dozen diseases whose names I couldn't and wouldn't bother to mention. "So you didn't have no surgery to get a doctor to hack your-"

Okay, maybe I was slowly planning my demise. Elendira's very masculine hands tightened on his suitcase for a few minutes. Beneath us and our plastic capsule-car the street zoomed by at a blazing speed. I figured if I jumped, it would only mean that all the bones in body would be crushed… small risk.

Elendira laughed. "Calm down, you foolish priest," he said, loosening his grip, "I am only playing with you."

Oh no you weren't, I thought. I had seen the way Elendira's eyes had narrowed to thin slits. My past had given me an insight on people like him. I knew that Elendira probably would have killed me on the spot if I wasn't somewhat valuable. "I knew that."

"Liar," a voice said from my right.

I looked there to see a rather handsome woman with long dark hair and an eye patch. She had a small smirk on her face like she knew everything. "How long has she been here?" I dropped my voice slightly. "She is a 'she', right?"

The woman shook her head slightly. "Dominique's all woman," Elendira said, "You should thank her for bringing you into the car."

Aside from the eye patch, Dominique looked rather normal. "Her?" I said, giving her a quick once over. Aside from the thin pistol at her hip and her lacey bustier under her shirt, she was rather normal looking. "How could she?"

"One my secrets," Dominique said, adjusting her eye patch. I could see raw looking scar tissue and a glimpse of a mutated eye. "I never let anyone know."

I leaned back in the seat. We had passed sector nine and were now in sector ten, where all of those fancy shops and restaurants places were. You could tell because we were because of signs in neon script and the speaker in our capsule crackling to life.

"Now entering the sector ten biodome. Your possessions WILL be searched for contraband."

Wow, it wasn't a question of "if", it was a question of "will". Unfortunately, the cigarettes in my jacket were bought on the black market. Dominique didn't seemed fazed as she glance toward the other side of the capsule. Glancing over, I saw Elendira open his handbag and take out a card.

"Oh, don't act like it's the end of the world, Nick," he said lightly, running the card in the machine near the door.

Nick? Nick? Where did he get off calling me Nick? It's "Wolfwood" for crying out loud.

"Because it hardly is," he concluded, tapping a quick code.

"Welcome to Sector Ten, Elendira Crimsonnail. Now proceeding to private entrance."

"See?" Elendira said lightly, as the machine ejected the card.

"Say," I said, leaning forward to see the card. Meanwhile the capsule diverted from the path leading to the station and headed toward a small building. "Nifty toy you have there. Where did you get it?"

Dominique snorted. "Standard issue to all Gung-ho Guns," she said, like I should know what she was talking about.

I didn't. "A-whata, whata?"

Maybe today wasn't my day. Vash not on meds (a scary thought), my safety deposit out the window thanks to the hole I punched in wall (it was their fault for making the walls flimsy), Livio being a crybaby (as usual), and finally… this. "Elendira," she sighed, "This guy," she looked at me, "After all of those," she broke off, "We should have gone in earlier. But noooooo," she shook her head, "You had to wait until he was thirty."

What? I stared at both of them blankly.

Elendira shrugged. "Some people mature slowly," he said, as if that explained it all. He gave me as casual once over, studied my bitten nails (I couldn't afford clippers), my messy hair, and beard stubble. He even tapped the massive collection of ash that collected at the end of cigarette. "Really slowly. Slow enough to make me doubt his age."

"Yeah," I said sarcastically, "Sorry to disappoint you, toots. I was talking to One-eyed over there," I added, when I saw Elendira smirk.

"So," Elendira said casually, as we pulled into the private station, "What do I have to do to convince you of my womanly charms?"

Womanly charms? The only way he could do that was if he got surgery to chop off his man-bits and get an actual set of tits. Even then he would be a she-male in a fur coat and an ankle length skirt. "Probably nothing."

"Let's kill him," Dominique said, her eye gleaming with delight, "He's filled up this cabin smoke. If I hadn't modified I'd be dead."

I looked at her. "You don't look dead," I offered, "You just look mildly ticked off."

"Aren't you a genius," she scowled, before raising herself to her feet, "Well, I'm off."

"Well, see…" I began, but she just blipped out of existence. I leaned out of the car, checked around and even waved my hand in the place where she had been. "Where did she go?"

"Don't know," Elendira shrugged, "But she does that a lot."

ooo

We had lunch in one of those fancy places where you have to be on a list to get in and where the cost of one dish could feed the orphan's at St. Marks for three years. The waiter air-kissed each of Elendira's cheeks as soon as he entered.

"My darling Elendira," the man crooned, "What brings you and your…" He glared at me and my clothing like my 'bad' fashion was catching, "Friend here?"

They proceeded to talk in French… Russian… Spanish? "Hey, what are you guys saying?"

Elendira didn't even pay me heed as he continued chatting like I was not even there. Finally the waiter turned to us and said, looking more and more like he would kill me for violating fashion. "May I take your coats?"

"Of course," Elendira cooed, handing him his thick fur coat. Underneath he wore a sweater, and a long skirt, both expensive like the coat, "You always think of the best."

I handed the man my jacket only to have him hand it back to me. "Maybe you should hold onto that."

Elendira made no protest until he led us near a table near the restrooms. I was about to protest when Elendira grabbed the man by the collar of his shirt. "Look here, you miserable worm bait," Elendira snarled, his free hand going from his suitcase handle to a small trigger that I hadn't notice before, "You have messed up for the last time."

"But Miss Crimsonnail," the man protested as he promptly wet himself, "I have been your waiter for many, many years. This has been my first mistake."

I began to protest, but than the part of me that had shot my foster father when I was seven told me to let the man squirm. "Do you think I want to spend my meal smelling puke, piss, and shit?"

"But Miss Crimsonnail, the bathrooms are sweet-smelling."

Elendira's hand crept toward the trigger, "Don't bullshit me. All bathrooms smell like that."

Inside the suitcase came several metallic shining clicks and clacks. Several customers in clothing even fancier than Elendira's started running for the door. "Hey," I said casually.

"What?" Elendira snapped, "I'm taking care of a pest."

"If the death is bloody… how will you be allowed into your favorite restaurant?"

Elendira's finger moved away from the trigger. "Damn," he whispered. Slowly he let the man drop to the floor. "When you're right, you're right, Nick."

The waiter's hand went to his bruised throat. "I'm terribly sorry," his voice no more than a raspy gurgle, "It will never happen again. Let me take you and your latest lover to the best table in the house?"

And he did. He led us away from the bathroom and closer to a window overlooking a small Plant-grown park in the center of the biodome. Then he bowed, rubbing his neck, before handing us menus. It was now up to me to figure out what was what. Okay, this language looked like what Vash was fond of speaking. French.

Now that I knew what language it was in, it was up to me not to order something that was still crawling. "Nice place, huh?" Elendira asked me.

"I wouldn't know. And why did he think that I was your lover?"

Elendira gave a little giggle. "Oh, that," he said, waving his hand, "I often bring my lovers here."

"Yeah, yeah, wonderful," I groaned, trying to hide behind the menu, "Now, everyone is going to think I have a thing with men with skirts."

"Oh," he smirked, "But you have a thing for men playing saxs."

There was a silence for a few moments. A young woman, obviously a candybopper, was holding her neon-colored pen above the pad. "Can I get you a drink?"

I looked up. Like all candyboppers, her hair had been dyed two different colors that badly clashed with each other. She also wore the traditional plastic leggings and halter-top that exposed her breasts.

She was barely out of teens.

Sad.

I've seen that style at my orphanage. Someday, I will find the person who came up with the candybopper look and shoot them. Probably a couple of pedophiles. Yeah, once I know I can live through this.

"Soda water and a lime slice," Elendira said casually, "And you?"

"Something stiff and alcoholic," I groaned.

The girl looked puzzled and sucked on the pacifier on the end of her necklace. "What would that be?"

Elendira butted in. "He wants a Bloody Mary. All Priests do."

Our waitress beamed, scratched down the order in her curly script and flounced off. "Priests don't like Bloody Marys."

He rolled his eyes. "Oh… Bloody… Mary…" He pressed his hands together for a second, "Religion… get it?"

"No." Elendira rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He leaned forward as we waited for our drinking. "I supposed you want to know why I brought you here."

"Good food?" I guessed, "That is if I can find something that isn't alive once it's brought out to me."

"No," Elendira hissed and dropped his voice, "Do you ever wonder why you became friends with someone who isn't known for having friends?"

I looked at him. "Look," I whispered back, "I was just lucky that my bike broke down near his place."

Except now I was having doubts. Big doubts. Elendira laughed cruelly. "Well," he said, "I'll let Millions tell you the rest."

"But does that have to do with anything?"

"Your first mission."

ooo

Elendira treated me to a meal I barely tasted. I wasn't sure what I had eaten and to be honest, I didn't want to know. Then he gave me instructions to a white government building. They never label them, but I know a Plant School when I see one.

Several dozen children, all under a year old ran up to me.

I was a bit surprised. Vash was six foot four, as lankily built as a basketball player. These children were less then four feet tall.

"Who is that man?" one of them asked and the rest of them chimed in with their small sounding voices.

Five dozen children and I had to take them on a field trip to the zoo.

"I'm Father Nicholas D. Wolfwood of St. Mark's," I said, leaning forward, "I'm going to be taking you to the zoo."

There were a quite a few delighted shrieks.

"Ooh, he's tall."

"Can you see the sun, Mister?"

I tried to answer the questions as best as I could. Suddenly someone sniffed my pant leg. I looked down to see a tiny pixie of a plantling girl, her face screwed up in distaste. "Wow," she said in wonder, "You stink, Mister."

Suddenly, they all wanted to sniff me.

"Stinky, stinky, stinky," they chanted in their small voices.

It really was going to be a long day.

…to be continued.


	6. Cinderblock Eden

Author's Note: Up until a certain point in the story, Vash will have both arms.

VI. Cinderblock Eden

Already the limo had made its way through the winding streets of the Grey City and into the slums. Vash for his part, had immediately, fallen asleep. He laid there, cheek pressed to the window, a thin stream of drool running down the glass.

It was raining in the slums. Like all things in this area, it was thick, oily, and grey with a faint sulfuric smell. "I hate this rain," Millie said slowly, "Why do we have to drive through stuff like this?"

Meryl hung up the phone in the limo. She cracked her knuckles. "Well, the towing company moved Thomas to the garage as usual. At least we were lucky enough to find him. If we knew where we were headed…" She trailed off and also watched the grey rain fall. "I think it's because the Plants in the Slums are near failure. Old programming."

"Oh," Millie said, her mouth open in a circle of surprise. "Where are we heading?"

"Ask him."

"Where are we going, Mister Vash?"

As usual Millie was being ultra polite.

Meryl watched as Vash looked up, a surprised expression on his face. She watched as the expression went through bemused, amused, and then Vash gave out a low chuckle. "Mister Vash?" he asked, staring at her partner.

Millie grinned. "Why my momma always told me to be polite to all peoples. Even if they aren't really people. She said that you have to be really polite to Plants because they will be mad and… and…"

Vash leaned forward as Millie trailed off. "What did she say?" he asked.

Meryl already knew what she would say and almost mouthed along. "Because they'll do something and it won't be nice."

Vash chuckled slightly. "She sounds like a nice lady."

"She is," Millie chirped leaning forward.

Meryl sighed and glared at him. Vash grinned like an idiot and scratched the top of his head. "O-kay," he said, "So who are you, where are you from, and why do you want to meet with me?

"Ma'am, do we really have to give him the speech?" Millie groaned, "It's so boring."

Meryl shook her finger in the air to and fro. "Really, Millie," she said, glaring at that Plant. She really thought that something that was older than you had to be… well wise. She frowned at Vash who gave her a rather lame looking smile. "He doesn't even know who we are."

Millie nodded in complete understanding. "Ahh," she said, nodding slightly, "That makes complete sense."

She held out her hand and Meryl grasped it in understanding. "All right!" Meryl cheered, "We'll show the world why we are the number one insurance agents in…"

"Umm, who are you?" Vash asked finally.

"And you, shut up!" Meryl snapped, the weight of having her beloved Thomas break down on her and discovering that her immortal plant prospect was childish and immature finally getting to her, "This is a conversation for my partner and I."

She proceeded to take the Bernardelli Insurance Society Rules and Regulations manual from her bag and soundly whump Vash over the head with it. "Merci, merci, merci…"

"Ma'am," Millie suddenly chimed in, "I thought we were supposed to give Mister Vash a insurance policy, not a concussion."

Meryl paused. "Oh dear," she said, poking at the groaning Vash with one finger, "Are you alright?"

Vash's eyes teared up. "How can you ask me something like that?" He rubbed his head and sniffled. "Jeeze-louise, I was just asking a valid question." He reached over and knocked on the smoky glass that covered the driver's compartment. After Vash had punched it out, it had automatically been replaced. All nanotech did that. "Brad."

The window rolled down to show the back of a man's head and the reflection of his glaring eyes. "What?"

The Plant simpered. "Tell this nice young lady that what she did was a wrong thing…"

"Fat chance."

The window rolled up again.

Vash sighed and leaned back in his seat. His gloved hands drummed against each other. "Man," he moaned, probing the back of his, "A bump. Knives is sure to know-"

"Mister Saverem," Meryl began, but Vash continued to whine.

"-And he'll say, 'Who did that to you, Vashu?' And I couldn't tell him that a short girl walloped me with a binder. "

"Mister Vash?" Millie tried tugging on his coat sleeves when she said this. "We still haven't introduced ourselves."

Meryl shook her head. "There's no way he would buy a policy now." She shook her head. "You better let us out," she added as an afterthought to Vash.

"Now, now, Meryl," Millie said, "Turn that frown upside down and give this man the Speech."

The Speech. It was up to an agent to bring honor to the society, Mr. Bernardelli had said. And a younger Meryl, fresh out of high school, had listened to them with pride. Even now, The Speech flowed easily. "I am Meryl Stryfe and this my partner Millicent-"

"Millie," her partner hissed, "Millie."

"And Millie Thompson of the Bernardelli Insurance Society. We're here to offer you life insurance."

"Oh?" Vash asked before a smile spread slowly across his face. It was clearly an 'I know something that you don't smile'. "I'm immortal. Don't need it."

"Great," Meryl said, stonily, "Can we be let off at the next subway station?"

"Um, sure," Vash said. He suddenly dug in his pocket and retrieved a few wrinkled dollars and handed the surprised duo the tickets. "Enough money for two lovely Insurance Girls."

He didn't even say my name, Meryl realized as she found herself outside the number forty subway station.

"Wasn't he such a nice young man?"

Meryl was quiet.

"I think I like him."

"He's a nitwit!" Meryl snapped, "That's what people admire and fear?" She shook her head.

"Well," Millie said, "My big big brother works in a nearby Plant. He says she has pretty elf ears and feathery hair. And big bumps on her back like babies and," she held her hands up to her mouth in a good impression of teeth. "Big teeth to chomp with."

Meryl sighed, "I guess the best to do would be think up a better plan."

"That's my Meryl!"

ooo

The door was marked with faded gold numbers. Vash never really looked at them. Why would he? His brother was the only person in this building. Smiling slightly, he knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Knives snapped on the other side. Vash checked his watch. Nine in the morning. Knives was pissy if he was woken up before noon. "Go away."

Vash mock-pouted even though he knew Knives wouldn't be able to see it. He even faked a little sniffle. "Gee, brother. If I had known I was unwelcome, well, I would have never come."

One dozen locks and one creaking door later, Knives finally faced his brother. Clad in a ratty robe, flannel pants, and ratty sneakers, Knives was the very image of hermit. Even his self-cut short ragged hair screamed out loner to the world. "Well, if it isn't my darling brother." He smiled. "How are you? Seen Tessla lately?"

Their relationship had been strained lately. It had been two months since he had paid Knives a proper visit.

"She's in Arizona getting a fake leg from this doctor... he, uhh, seems nice and..."

"Why are we meeting in the hall?" Knives asked.

"Well I…"

"Get inside," Knives almost commanded. "Or is my apartment too messy for your high class?"

Vash chuckled as he ducked under the low doorway. They both had to duck. The door was too short by a foot. "You know I don't have the patience to keep anything neat. So, why are you up?"

His brother looked slightly pained. "Legato insists on eating. That chewing of his keeps me up."

Vash scratched the back of his head and sat down on one of the boxes that passed for furniture in Knives' apartment. "So where is Legato?"

Knives shrugged. "In the kitchen. Where else? He's been looking forward to meeting you."

"Oh."

"That's all you can say?"

"Yeah."

Knives rolled his eyes, dusting his hands off on his pants. "Well, tell him to put the ice cream back in the fridge when he's done. I'm going to take a shower."

Knives never asked. He simply stated.

Vash sighed and pushed his way through the doorway.

There was junk food on the table. Candy, chips, and soda in a bowl of ice cream dripping with chocolate. Spooning in this mixture was a blue-haired man with one visible eye.

"Hi, I'm-"

"I know," the man whispered in a rather silky sounding voice. "Ma- My lover's brother, Vash Saverem." He said the Saverem part like it disgusted him.

Vash shudder slightly. "You must be-"

"Ma- Knives' boyfriend, Legato Bluesummers," he said coolly before sprinkling more barbeque chips over his ice cream.

"So… do you have one of those relationships?"

"It would be nice if I did," Legato sighed.

Great, brother, why did you have to fall for the loony ones?

…to be continued 


	7. Not All Beasts…

Author's Notes: Have a cold this week, so I've been sleeping a lot lately. Yeah, thanks a lot sis for giving me a cold. Bleck. Another Wolfwood POV chapter, so forgive any rude sounding bits. Wolfwood's like that. Also, note, that a character belonging to a good friend of mine, Neo Shinigami-sama, appears in this fanfic. He's agreed to do a guest chapter. 

VII. Not All Beasts…

Plantlings. For some reason, they were all blondes. Less than a year old, half grown freeborn Plants who thought they knew more than you. Which in most cases is very true. Vash still kicks my butt at chess. Anyway, I told you what Plantlings are and pretty much see no reason to do a recap. If you knew my situation, you would put up and shut up.

Yeah… probably should get back on topic. There were five dozen of them and right off the bat, they decided I was smelly. Okay, I know that I'm heavy smoker, but I don't think I smell THAT bad. I did the only thing I could do. I bent down and ruffled the little girl's hair. She was the little girl who started the whole "Let's Sniff Wolfwood" trend. "Aren't you a cute little thing?"

She stared up at me, stubbornly as the other children backed away and found other things to amuse themselves with. She pouted, narrowed her brown eyes and tossed a braid over one of her shoulders. She stomped her feet against the ground, "I'm not a little thing. My name is Rachel and I'm nine so that's very, very not little."

"Oh," I said, resisting the urge to light up a cigarette. There were teachers in the background and that probably wasn't the best move to do. "Is that so? You look pretty small to me."

The other five dozen minus one Plantlings all put forth their opinions. Frankly, I wished they would keep their little genius mouths shut.

"You're annoying, Mister."

Thank you.

"What does a stinky man like you know anyway?"

Street smarts.

"I know five languages, how many do you know?"

Just bits and pieces, but what's the big deal? I've been calling Vash "Tongari" for years and he has no idea that it means "point". I have a thing for Samurai Films. So sue me.

I clapped my hands together. "Well," I said, "Today we're going on a trip to zoo."

I stood back and waited for a response. I was expecting looks of joy and cheers from the five dozen. Anything. Why had that damned trannie given me this assignment in the first place? That she-male Elendira had something to answer for. Nothing. Not a cheer, not a stare…

"You know," I said, "When I was a kid I would…"

"Have walked to school in the snow for ten miles, up hill, both ways?"

"Eaten broccoli?"

"Broccoli's been exstink for a hundred bigillion months!"

"You mean 'extinct', you ninny," one of the girls promptly stuck her tongue at the boys. I sighed, seeing a riot of minute proportions on the horizons. "But you wouldn't know, because you're even more stupider than the Stinky Man."

Great, so instead of being Nicholas D. Wolfwood, I'm now 'The Stinky Man'. Oh well, beats being called 'Nicky'. But Lord Almighty do I want a cigarette. "Children, children," I said, finally, stepping into their thong, "What's so wrong with the zoo? I've never been myself."

Five dozen pairs of eyes rolled. "He doesn't know?" the Plantling whose name was Rachel said, "Ain't that a laugh?"

Silence. Man, I hate that. They looked at me and I looked back. Not much happened, not much noting. Just five dozen blondes staring back at me. "O-kay," I finally said, breaking the silence, "What do you mean by that?"

One of the smallest Plantling tugged my legs, "There is no zoo… not really, just the Zoological," Whatever that meant, "Building. And that's boring."

They all looked at me. "Well, that's what I'm here for." They pouted. "How about next time I take you to the movies?"

"Well…" They said as a whole chorus, "We guess that that would be alright."

Finally, we were getting somewhere. Well, maybe we were. I really couldn't tell. Maybe that was a good thing or a bad thing. All I knew was that I knew only one person's name in the whole group. "Okay," I said, "So what are your names?"

They pelted me with a hailstorm of names. I expected the most I could memorized would be five out of five dozen. "That great," I said and led them all to the office. "Wait outside."

They clustered outside as I opened the door and entered. There was a rail thin old woman with a twisted expression on her face. The kind that makes you wonder if she sucks lemons for kicks. Right away, I hated her even more than I hated Elendira. I could be friendly. "Hey," I said, "I'm Reverend Wolfwood, the," what blanket industry did Millions use anyway… oh yeah, "Millions-Nikola Organization sent me here to-"

"Take the little freaks," she snapped. "See if you can try to get them kidnapped or something."

I slammed my hands on the table. "Now see here, Lady," I said, "I thought this school was dedicated to educating Plantlings by the nation's leading professors."

Now, I didn't know half of what that meant, but it was the little spiel that Vash gave every time he defended a Plant School. He was usually on the phone talking to Knives and Tessla, before slamming it down, completely upset. Then he would spend the next two hours whining about how they had teamed up against poor little him. Sometimes I wanted to smack him, tell him to wake up, and remember his other siblings.

"It is," she said, "So?"

I could feel a headache coming on. "What is with you people?"

She rolled her eyes. "Reverend Wolfwood… may I point out that they are beastlings." She shuddered. "Dreadful things… should belong in a zoo."

"Not all beasts are in cages," I said as she handed over a money pass.

"I couldn't agree more," she said snidely.

Stupid fool missed the point.

ooo

Elendira smirked. God, there was something wrong with a man who smiled like that. Or a man who dressed in women's clothing, but… "So, how did you like the zoo? Scope out any new housing?"

I groaned and lit my fifteenth cigarette of the day. From loosing my Security Deposit to Vash waking me up too early, I had no idea on how the day could get worse. "You mean the 'Zoological Building'… don't you?"

"Whatever," Elendira sighed, huffin' in the cold. I noticed his clothing was way too light for the temps that this city can get into. He was now wearing a light velvet-looking (probably was velvet) fur trimmed coat-cape thing. "Let's just get to some place warmer."

I grinned. Somehow I loved getting a rise out of him. To know that the smirking unruffable she-male could be ruffled. Okay, I'm not sure if "unruffable" is a word, to tell you the truth, but it sounds pretty damn good. "Ahhh, gee," I said sarcastically, "I was planning on getting frostbite today, but looks like you…" Elendira gritted his teeth and aimed his suitcase thing at me. "Fine."

We entered the nearest smoky bar and sat down in a corner booth. Elendira ordered one of those fancy cocktails drinks with one of those paper umbrellas and before I could order a beer, he had gone and ordered me something. To top it off, it even sounded girly. "Right away," the waiter said, obviously enchanted by Elendira, "Anything for a beautiful lady." Wait until you see what's under the beautiful lady's coat, pal. "Can I take your coat?"

Elendira fluttered his eyelashes at the man. "Only as long as I can get it back. It would cost an arm and leg on your salary."

I looked his way and laughed. Elendira had a tight grip on our waiter's package, sharp nails digging in slightly. Okay, it's enough to make any man cross his legs and wince, but dang in my mood anything is hilarious. "So, why did you choose this place?"

Smokey, dank, dark. In other words, my kind of dive. Didn't seem to suit little miss pretty, pretty princess next to me. "Oh," Elendira said, wide-eyed and not one bit innocent. "Midvalley plays here. He's just finishing up a set." He waved his hands back and forth. "Oh, Midvalley… babe… here!"

He was on the stage. From his custom Italian-made suit to that pink shirt of his to his two-toned shoes to his saxophone he named Sylvia. Midvalley "the Hornfreak" LeBlanc. The problem was with Midvalley, if you slept with him, you slept with every single man and woman he ever slept with. He finished the last notes of song, flicked his bangs back triumphantly, and took a bow.

Egotistical little SOB. Please don't notice us. Please don't notice me for that matter.

Midvalley looked up as the last of the applause died away. "Brilliant," I heard him say, "Simply…" He cut off and looked at me. Damn. "And if it isn't?"

"Midvalley!" Elendira called happily, waving him over.

Midvalley slung his sax over one shoulder and strode over to our table. "Elendira," he took one of his hands and kissed it, "My favorite lovely woman… still a vision of wonder after all this time."

"Been two days," Elendira said.

Midvalley gave an overdramatic sigh, "Too long. And Nick." He gave me a grin. "Long time, no see." I grumbled. He took that as an affirmative and sat beside me, throwing an arm across my shoulder. "Nice to see you too, Nicky-baby."

Nicky-baby! He called me Nicky! Son of bitch knows better than to call me Nicky. I swear to God, if Midvalley doesn't remove his hand, I'm removing it for him and shoving it up his… well I'm shoving it somewhere. "Screw you, Hornfreak."

Midvalley gave me "The Look". I can't really describe it, but it's something that Midvalley can do and do well. "Is that all you have to say to me? Really Nick, I thought more of you."

"Well, you gave me some nice crotch critters when you left!"

"That wasn't me!" Midvalley said, the very picture of innocence, "I'm sure you got it from that freak show you hang around."

"Freak show?" Elendira cut in, "How wonderful."

"The reason," Midvalley continued, "Why he broke up with me. Nick loves blondes."

"Is that so?" Elendira asked coyly, leaning toward me. I tried to inch away; his hand got me right there. Damn. "I'll have to test out the theory."

Before I could voice a protest, Elendira kissed me. I sputtered and gulped for air the instant he released me. "Yah damned trannie bastard."

"Oh," Elendira said, pouting slightly, "You didn't have to say that."

I stumbled out of the booth, over a fully protesting Midvalley and into our waiter. I heard an oomph, a crash-tinkle sound, and something cold soaking into my jacket. "I'm not getting in your freak show. You two," I huffed, "Can go screw each other, because all freaks love company."

Midvalley's face turned colder than I had ever seen. Sylvia, his beloved Sylvia, was placed to his lips in a matter of seconds. Stupid, stupid. Midvalley was a fully trained assassian. Damn, damn, damn. "I should kill you…"

I could see my death on the horizon. Despite all my mods, I doubted I could have taken a solo from the Hornfreak. Just as the grim reaper was telling me to keep my head, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times I heard…

"Enough. Midvalley, like or not he's one of us, but not yet."

I looked up. Midvalley casually set Sylvia next to him, brown eyes still gleaming cruelly. "Just put a bit of a scare into him," he said lazily and the Midvalley I knew was back like that. "He knows I wouldn't harm him."

Son of… he had changed. I'd seen his eyes. He would have killed me and gone back to what he was doing like it was nothing. That was how he did thing. "Yeah, right," I grumbled. "So what about drinks."

"Get them another round," Midvalley told our drink-soaked waiter. The man grumbled and walked off.

"He seemed rather put off," Elendira offered me a hand back up. The back of my coat reeked like fake fruit and there was a paper umbrella lodged behind one of my ears.

"He better not be," Midvalley said, "I own the place."

…to be continued.


	8. Neon Rising

Author's Notes: The First Part of the BDN Saga. NeoShinigamiSama's character appears in this fic, so I'm happy enough to let him post a copy on his own page. 

VIII. Neon Rising

Every city had its creepy history. Haunted houses, areas of the city that were better left unspoken about. Grey City had Grigori Alley and that in itself was infinitely worse.

Grigori Alley was fifteen miles long, ten feet wide, and between buildings that were fifty stories tall. It was the home to over fifteen hundred Plant Angels incased in glass tunnels, an experimental style favorable over sixty years ago. There was never a more appropriate name for such a lonely street. It wasn't a street, just more of an access port of sorts.

The Angels watched. And watched they did. They would sometimes appear to people, seemingly frail naked women with out of proportion limbs and headless plump cherubs growing of their backs. No one walked down Grigori Alley unless they had to.

They sat there, many with their hair so black only white streaks remained. Several should have been scheduled for last runs years ago. No one wanted to do a last run on a Grigori Alley Plant. The Angels would lash themselves against the glass and no one doubted that one day, one would break free. So all they did was install more Plant Angels.

Up to five shared cramped tubes, many merging into single life forms as time went by. Then they were grossly beautiful with multiple heads, faces, squirming tentacles, legs, and arms alike. Sometime they would separate and in the absence of male plants (all kept in an unknown location) would copulate for weeks, clouding the fluid in the bulbs, filling Grigori Alley with their song. And then they would remerge and sleep, dreaming of an existence better than their own. This existence was known to none. The Plant Angels would speak to no one and no one would dare stay around long enough to see if they would actually speak aloud.

Only one man dared to walk the fifteen miles. A man who shone like the neon in the city. Brilliant Dynamites Neon. He came for the sparkle.

Confidently, the man strode into the ten foot wide alley, seemingly narrower due to his immense size. The Angels stirred and threw themselves again their bulbs, some leaving bloody smears against the glass. They hated him. They hated everything.

BDN feared nothing. To prove his fearlessness, he would walk the length of the alley before a heist, because he could and there was shine.

The Angels snarled and hissed, harpy women with impossibly beautiful faces and long razor-like teeth. Electricity cracked and snapped around them. Only females powered the city. BDN heard by word of mouth that they kept the males in the some facility somewhere. He didn't care. He was surrounded by lovely, hissing, homicidal Plant Angels. This was death. This was what he could face at any moment.

A Plant Angel slammed against her bulb so hard slight stress cracks appeared in the glass. BDN bowed as he walked out of Grigori Alley. "Keep shining, ladies."

The last fifteen plants in Grigori Alley snapped and snarled, scratching at the glass so hard that their fingers bled. "I like your style," BDN said, smiling with his teeth filed into points and placing his hat over his dreadlocks. He had filed his teeth like that ever since he had seen a Plant Angel smile. "You sparkle and shine… how glorious can you get?"

He disappeared back into the sewers and subway system for another heist.

ooo

"You going to be on here any longer, kids?" the conductor of the number seven express snarled.

The older of two adjusted his shades. "I think you got it wrong, Pops. We're not children… we're teenagers."

The conductor sighed. The kid had arrived about two in the morning with his girlfriend… showed him his unlimited pass and told him "Just wanna see how far this will take us."

Technically, he could do nothing. The kid, teenager rather, had a point. Customers, in his own opinion, were meant to come on, ride to their stop and get off. Not hang around, crack rude jokes, and occasional make out. "Damnit," he cursed, "There has to be something in rules and regulations on this."

The girl looked at him. Obviously she was a punk of some kind as a bunch of hair in the middle of her head had been dyed a glossy black. And were those pointed ears? The girl had pointed ears, long and flushed flat against her hair. The girl frowned, covering up her ears. "It isn't polite to stare you know."

"Yeah," her boyfriend said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, "There is a viewing fee. Fifty up front. Plastic, cash… I'm not picky."

Only two more hours until the end of his shift. Why couldn't they come fast enough.

ooo

"Gee Ma'am, isn't the subway system fascinating?"

Meryl held her nose shut. "It stinks," she groaned, wondering how a city so technologically advanced could run the subway through the sewers.

And it did. Back in its heyday, before the expansion, it had apparently been a beautiful gleaming line. Now the only thing left was shattered tile and dreams. The homeless lived and died in these tunnels, proving that no matter how low you seemed to sink, there was always some way you could sink down lower.

In the shallow wastewater under the tracks, Meryl swore she could see a human hand with a wedding ring stuck on one of its swollen fingers float by. She gagged. "Ma'am," Millie asked, patting her back and handing her a napkin to wipe the sick off her face, "Are you okay?"

"As okay as a something or other," she said, throwing the napkin in the water. "I'm not sure."

Something ran over her foot. Great. She hopped on the other foot, screamed, cursed, and shook her fist at the heavens. "Ow, ow, ow, ow."

"Gee Old Lady," someone said near her left side. "You should watch where I'm going." It was a scruffy kid in a pair of overalls and a bandage slapped on one cheek.

Meryl gritted her teeth. "Old lady?" she repeated, "Old lady." The boy didn't answer her. "I'm twenty-one for crying out loud."

He finally turned around, dropped the cooler's rope (she hadn't noticed it before, but the tracks left on her boot suggested it had run over her foot.), before giving her a long and appraising look. "Ma'am," Millie chimed in, "Maybe he'll say sorry."

The kid stared at her, walked around her, and then looked up. "Meh," he said, "I think you look forty."

Meryl clenched her fist as the train crept up to the station. "Why that dirty little…" Her hands clenched and unclenched as the kid dragged his cooler onto the subway car farthest away. "He's going to get and get it good."

Millie tugged on her cape. "Get what good, Meryl?"

She sighed, "Never mind. Let's just get on the train. Anytime more any this." Meryl wrinkled her nose, "Well, let's just get out of this stink trap in a hurry."

Millie grinned. She was cheerful as ever. Meryl didn't think that anything could faze a Thompson. Ever. "Right Ma'am."

ooo

The comm in BDN's hands crackled to life. BDN lit a Sparkler Day Cigarette and held the comm to his ear. "Speak and shine."

Crack, hiss, pop. "I'm on the train."

BDN grinned from ear to ear as the Bad Lads prepared their weapons. "Good work kid, do you job and make it sparkle."

"Over and out."

…to be continued.


	9. Tessla

Author's Notes: Wolfwood meets the first Plant ever and discovers what a "witch" is. And this chapter makes this fic rated R.

IX. Tessla

You know… as pretty as parts of the Grey City can get, it's still the worst city I know of. They doll it up, parade it around, and call it a marvel. But it's still a hellhole. Most people have never left their sector. Most people die in their own section personal hell, still gasping in their own muck.

Me? Maybe I'm an exception to the rule, maybe I'm not. This city is full of muck and I've never left it. All I know is I turned thirty last December. That's an age to brag about. Its good news and bad news for the same reason. I'm still alive. Then I spend my time and birthday wondering why I am alive. Then I light up and wonder when I'll hack up a lung.

Yep, I'll get up one day and weeze, hack, cough, cough… there would be my lung on the ground. But it wouldn't be pink, it would be all black and gross like that. It would be puss-covered and kinda moldy like a slice of bread I found behind my fridge. I thought it called me Momma, but it turned out to be Vash yanking my chain… that bastard. People would come up to it and poke it and say, "Gee, is that a burnt piece of meat."

And people who know me would shake their head and go, "Nope, that's Nicholas D. Wolfwood's lung. He was rather hard on it."

"Is that so?" the people will say, "What a shame that he was so hard on that lung." Then they would see me gurgling on the ground. "Oh, buck up… you still have a lung left."

ooo

I left the plantlings at the center. Not before they got a promise out of me to take them to the movies. This didn't make sense, since I had dropped them off two hours ago and had gone to a bar with that Venus with a penis, Elendira. "Come on, Mister," they said to me in their childish voices, "We wanna go to the movies." 

I untangled two plant girls from my legs. They only looked nine "Don't worry, I said, cheerfully, "I'll come back in no time."

Someone cleared their throat. I looked up and groaned in irritation. Who should be standing there, but that she-male, Elendira, tapping his watch and grinning like a jackass. 

"Awwww," one little girl said, pouting slightly, "But I wanna mawwy you."

"But I can't," I protested.

"How about now?" said the Plant Girl, but she was a woman now and naked… her breasts firm and ripe. "Am I right for you?"

I sighed and reached out, but my hands were aged and crippled by crooked bones. I weezed, "But that's impossible."

"You shouldn't have taken the blue stuff," she said, clucking her tongue at me. "It does horrible stuff to your manstuff."

In panic, I used my aged hands to rip open my slacks. There was nothing there but burnt cinders. Everything was gone… everything. I opened my mouth to protest and my teeth dropped out followed by a rush of hot coppery blood. All I could do was gurgle in panic.

"Told ya," she cooed happily.

My fingers dropped off next and wiggled happily in the street before bursting into flames. My stomach bulged and then split open in a gush of red and black. That's not good, I thought to myself. Then my eyes rolled out of my head and my vision with them. I could still see my body as it crumples into nothing.

ooo

Someone snapped their fingers against my head. Great, just what I needed. Much to my surprised, I found my head in Elendira's lap. "Oh yes, baby," Elendira mock-groaned, giving me the same grin he had when he picked me up and took me to this little bar which Midvalley happened own, "Give my girl parts a good polish."

I shot up in a hurry. The last thing I remember was Midvalley and Elendira going on and on about fancy new shoes and me wishing for the mattress in my apartment. "You're no lady," I shot back.

Damn dream, damn Elendira, damn Midvalley, and damn Vash for good measure. Midvalley was grinning. "So, you started snoring and I figured I would push you against Elendira for good measure." He shrugged.

"You son of b…"

"Tsk… tsk," Elendira said, wagging a finger in front of my face. I snapped at it and only got my lower lip. As I cussed up a small storm, he cheerful continued, "We have places to go and Last Runs to see." He leaned in close and smiled cheerfully. "Have you ever seen a Last Run?"

"I have," Midvalley said, a bit too eager for my tastes, "Her midsection kinda split open and her cooking guts spilled out as her hair blackened."

No and it sounded gross.

"That's sick," I said, feeling disgusted.

"This coming from the man who blew out the brains of his adopted father. I really don't get you," Midvalley shook his head slightly. "Well," he said, studying one of the many rings on his fingers, "Tell me if you puke."

Bastard, I decided, Midvalley was the king of all bastards in the universe. "Don't worry," I said, smiling broadly, "If I do, I'll make sure to save you a bucketful."

The sight of Midvalley turning green at the gills was more than worth it as I walked out into another grey noon. Elendira covered his eyes and looked up at the sky. "Looks like snow," he finally said, turning up the collar of his coat, "Luckily I'll be in my warm rooms when this stuff hits." He looked at me and tried to act coy and shit. "So," he said in this syrupy voice that still managed to say 'If you don't agree with me, I'll rip off your hands and make you eat them, you!', "Where will you be tonight?"

Not in my apartment for sure. Probably bumming the couch in Vash's penthouse, surfing the channels looking for a good porno. Hey, I'm still a man. "Probably at my home or the church… I'm a real homebody." Except it's not my home. "I'll watch TV… stuff like that." Again, it's not my TV set. I put my foot through my TV… it was sparking already. "Maybe microwave up something… I dunno."

"You could stay with me", Elendira said as we crossed the street. 

I could see the big park that was right near where Vash lived his penthouse. "So this is where the Plant that's getting the Last Run is?"

"Right in the center," Elendira said, "They have three Plants running at full speed." He frowned slightly as we walked into the forest. "So much silliness over this Central Park thing."

"It's nice… it's green."

Elendira shook his head. I finally noticed the silly little fur hat thing that he was wearing. It was fluffy and stupid. "Keeping it green kills a Plant in Fifteen Years. And the fools keep on trying to get this big thing to stay alive… they should just let it die or build a bio-dome."

"Jesus," I said to myself, before clearing my throat. "Damn, Elendira, what kinda fool are you? Even I know how important the park is the way Tongari goes on and on about it."

I was feeling confident, maybe even a little overconfident, when Elendira suddenly smacked me hard. His fake nails cut into my face. "Get it through your filthy, uncombed head, Judas Priest," Elendira hissed, his nostrils flaring and his voice dropping until he sounded like that man in drag he was. "It's just a stupid park… there's no reason to preserve it when it kills Master Knives' siblings."

Knives. Siblings. God damn it all, he was talking about Vash's brother. "You mean…"

Elendira rolled his eyes. "Oh puh-leaze," he said before lighting one, "You're Eye of Micheal for crying out loud. You should know who you're working for. Livio, Lazlo, or whatever name he's going by these days, knows."

"Well I don't," I said, touching my hand to my stinging cheek. Fake bitch had drawn blood with his fake nails. "Bitch." I paused a second and added, "Bastard."

"Thank you," Elendira said, suddenly cheerful.

We had entered a small clearing. There were holo-ads flashing everything from canned air to Sparkler Day Cigarettes to toilet paper. And in the middle of the clearing was a Plant Bulb filled with cloudy slightly bloody fluid and her.

The Plant Angel was curled up in the center of the bulb, her wings more bones than feather, the cherubs on her back blackened and smoldering, and her guts spilling out of large rips in her. That couldn't be healthy. She weakly hissed and tried to bite the Engineers attaching cable to every part of her body.

I really didn't know what to think. On one hand, she was a helpless female in distress. On the other hand, she was a vicious alien whose people were bred for the only reason of being power plants. Besides, what could I do? She was good as dead anyway.

They even had a new Plant Angel in a coffin ready to transfer. She was still a child in Plant terms with her small breasts and tiny wings budding everywhere on her body. "A bit young to be bringing into another bulb," Elendira said under his breath, "Don't try to stop it, you'll get shot and what good would that do Master Knives?" He pointed to his own face, "Do you want to get those scratches looked at?"

"What scratches?" I said. I could feel them itching slightly as they shrunk. Just another part of my getting modified. "So all we can do is watch?"

They were pulling switches on a panel. The Plant in the bulb turned her head toward the crackling sound and mewed slightly.

"Roll one. And keep that girl steady, we could blackout the whole power grid."

"Gotcha, gotcha… I thought this was supposed to be immortal."

"Only if powered right I think."

"I don't really care… just get this done, move onto the next one."

There was a kid about ten with her mom, cute thing with missing front teeth and a balloon in one hand. "Hey Lady," I shouted over the crackling in the air, "You mind taking your kid away from this?"

"She need to see this," the woman protested. I would probably never see her again and that was a good thing. I probably would have punched her. "I was at a Final Run when I was a child and I was fine."

"Don't blame me when your kid turns out to be an axe murderer."

She rolled her eyes and turned away. The last run was already starting. The Plant screamed and twisted as her hair turned black. I could hear a childish giggle and realized how sick the city was.

It was already over. The Plant Angel was already dead and her charred corpse was floating down to the bottom of the bulb. People walked off because the entertainment was over. "Is that it?" I asked as they installed the new Plant.

"Pretty much," Elendira said, before adjusting his oversized suitcase. "Stay alive, you. We'll be sending your assignment soon."

"Assignment? What assignment?"

Elendira studied me once more. "Nicholas Wolfwood," he said finally, "You really are clueless, aren't you?"

He winked and walked away. In the bulb, the small Plant approached her dead sibling and ran long fingers through the other's black hair. I watched them closely until the Plant opened her mouth wide revealing rows and rows of long jagged teeth. She bent her head and ripped away half of her dead sister's face. I looked away, feeling sick. 

That's when I saw her.

She was on a bench, watching everything. She was thin with small breasts, and blonde hair with black streaks running through it. She (definitely female) wore white which matched her freaky little dog with its solid yellow eyes and six legs. It even had a tiny pair of useless wings on it's back.

"Good," I heard her say, "The bitch finally stopped whining. I would have gone mad."

I looked at her. Her freak dog was now running around her legs yapping something that sounded 'mama' over and over again. "You talking about the Plant Angel?"

"Of course," she said, rolling her eyes, "What other twit could I be talking about?" She looked just like a female version of Vash. Hell, she even had a little beauty mark on her left cheek. "I'm talking about the Plant Angel I had killed."

"You were the one who ordered?"

"Of course," she said, "She would have died anyway. I just sped up her death."

Her little dog sniffed my shoes. It wagged all eleven of its tails and little wings. "Daddy?" it asked, "Daddy?"

"Hey you," she said, tugging the dog back on its leash so hard it bounced on the sidewalk, "I didn't spend five grand on a Plant Angel-Dog hybrid for you to sniff a human."

The dog ran back up and licked my loafer. Its weird eyes locked on to mine. "Daddy?"

"Little traitor," she scowled and limped to over to the dog. I could see that one of her eyelids dropped and the eye was glassy-looking. "I won't have you doing that."

She casually snapped the dog's head off with a twist of her wrist. The thing twitched once and was still. "That was uncalled for."

"It was made of my DNA. The DNA of the first Freeborn," she said, standing up proudly, despite her fake leg and glass eye, "I made it, therefore it goes by my rules."

I finally recognized the sullen face, that pasty skin, that chin-length haircut. "So you're Tessla Saverem."

Tessla looked at the bloody and mangled corpse in her hands before shoving both pieces into the Plant bulb. The Plant Angel squealed and started chewing at her new treat. Tessla stared at her bloody white gloves and clothes for a moment. She cleared her throat. "Tessla Nikola… I'll be damned if I go by that Saverem bitch's name. How did you know who I am?"

"You're famous, you know," I said, lightning up another cigarette and praying for lung cancer. "Besides I'm friends with Vash."

She gawked at me. "Why would anyone want to be friends with him…" She trailed off and smirked, "Besides Knives and I know what his interest in him is."

"Which is?"

She just walked away, through the trees and to her limo. I stood there in one of few green parts of the city and smoked my cigarette as snow began to fell. 

God, I hated that girl.

But she probably hated me too, so that made it even.

…to be continued. 


	10. 3…2…1… Go!

X. 3...2...1... Go! 

You can do it, Kaite, he told himself that morning as he crushed sleeping pills and used the powder to coat several dozen plastic cups. It was hard work and the stuff in the pills made his joints feel numb. Maybe it would cause him damage. Maybe it already had. He couldn't move his fingers that well anymore.

That's what he had been telling himself since this morning. But it hadn't been easy the first time. Or the second. Or the third.

So what time was it now?

How many times had he been doing what he did?

He knew how to drug whole trains full of passengers so Brilliant Dynamites Neon could rob them.

Three years.

He didn't feel guilty.

Not really.

He did this to keep fed.

He finished the last cup and put it into the cooler. So, this would make it about the three hundredth time doing this. Automatically, Kaite checked the bottled drinks for leaks and closed the lid. Juice was a valuable commodity in the Grey City lately. Something about a nearby grove's Plant exploding or something like that. He really didn't care. Plants bored him.

But his dad had been fascinated by Plants. Enough that he cooed over a Freeborn Plant day in and day out. Maybe mom walking out on him had done that. Kaite wished she had stayed around. Maybe life would have been better.

Kaite slammed the lid on the cooler closed.

That was a whole lot of maybes.

ooo

Three hundred, he told himself again as he pulled the cooler through the subway station. For some reason, this time Kaite felt nervous as if something was going to go wrong this time. His cooler was filled with juice and other "complimentary" treats for the passengers. Getting another free seller's pass was simple. All Kaite had to do was lie about his "Poor ill sister and how he needed the money to pay for her treatment. There was a sudden bump and someone said "ow". Kaite nearly cursed and looked to his right to see a small woman beside her oversized partner.

Kaite had to think and think fast. "Gee Old Lady. You should watch where I'm going."

The small woman gritted her teeth. "Old lady?" she repeated, "Old lady?" Kaite remained silent, trying to ignore her. "I'm twenty-one for crying out loud."

Kaite sighed, turned around, and dropped the cooler's rope. She had thrown off the schedule. Bitch, he thought to himself. "Ma'am," the giant lady chimed in, "Maybe he'll say sorry."

The schedule was all wrong now. Stupid person. BDN demanded a schedule down to the minute and probably down to the second if the thought entered his mind. "Meh," he said, "I think you look forty."

Okay it was the wrong thing to say, but the schedule had been thrown off. More than thrown off. It had practically been thrown out the window. Silently the train slid into the station. Kaite took off for the last car. He had always started from the front, but today he would have to start from the back. Damn this all.

"Excuse me," said an elderly woman, tapping him with a cane, "Is that juice I see?"

Kaite nodded and tried to act casual. With his usual bravo, he poured her a drink and handed her a package of chips.

He was hurting no one really. BDN always dropped them off or so he said. He could trust the guy who gave him cold hard cash.

"Yes Ma'am," he said calmly. There was a lump in his throat as if he was going to throw up. He swallowed it back. "This one is on the house."

ooo

Knives only thought about things in the shower that concerned him. Usually the shower wasn't the best place to think about them. He wasn't concerned about much.

He didn't think about being a supreme being, he thought that over a bowl of breakfast cereal. Knives usually ate breakfast at midnight and denied morning existed. He didn't think about his schedule, Elendira did that for him.

He thought about how he was going to wash his back, not how he was going to take over the world. Taking over the world had a nice ring to it, but he wasn't fond of the humans who lived on it. Besides, as he had often told himself, what was the use of taking over the cinders of a wasteland of a world?

And planning that in the shower was just… just…

Knives winced and began rinsing out the soap in his eye.

ooo

Legato had eyes that looked like a cat. When he smiled, he looked like a cat Rem had once owned. The thing had scared him badly to the point Rem sent the thing to live at at the then unseen, but frequently mentioned Uncle Joey's. Knives had called him a crybaby, but Vash could care less. The thing could smile and smile it did.

Legato Bluesummers was ten times worse.

"So… er…" Vash tapped his fingers on his jeans, trying to avoid Legato's yellow eyes. He focused on his coat hanging near the door and wondered if the spiders that lived in Knives' apartment were trying to build webs in it again. Legato cleared his throat and smiled. He was sure that the covered eye was looking at him to say how stupid he thought Vash was. "How did you and my brother… meet?"

Legato stuffed another chip into his mouth and chewed slowly. He really didn't seem to want to answer. He stared at Vash, visible eye narrowed. Finally, he did swallow. "In a mental hospital," he said, "Knives and I met in a mental hospital. One with padded walls and electroshock therapy. Not the weak kind, but the kind that can kill you."

"Electroshock therapy?" Okay, he said to himself, why can I believe that?

"Yes," Legato said, nodding quickly, "They should do that a lot more often."

Vash coughed. "Oh," he said, "So Knives was getting out and volunteering and he met you…" The rest of the sentence died in his throat, was buried, and given a proper funeral.

Legato glared, "Ma… Knives doesn't like talking about it. Neither do I for that matter."

Vash watched a fly land on the nearest box to him. It crawled over the rough surface until it suddenly twitched and died. He gulped. Somehow the air had become ice cold and it seemed all of the tiny hairs on his arms had turned into tiny feathers. He looked up. Legato was grinning from ear to ear, showing off way too many teeth, his eyes brilliant and cold at the same time.

'You have great power," Legato said.

"Um," Vash said finally, trying to find a way to say, 'Please sir, I want out of here and now, thank you very much. First his voice decided to take a trip south, followed by his tongue, which took the advice of his voice and took a vacation in the islands. "I should be leaving."

"Why?"

Vash scratched his head. This was getting extremely awkward… to some point beyond awkward. He went back to drumming his fingers on his legs. "Well, I have places to go."

He could hear the subtle rattling weezing noise that Knives' shower made. He could see the tiny bits of dirt embedded in the microscopic fissures in Knives' furniture. He looked up, cursed his enhanced senses. Legato's face was now strangely dead. Every muscle was still. His lips drooped slightly and his eyes had the glazed, glassy look of a corpse. Vash shuddered. What kind of man had his brother found? "Okay," he said.

Vash got up, relieved to be leaving the worst place in world. Legato smiled coldly. Work legs, work, Vash tried to tell himself, but his legs seemed to be locked into place. He tried to move one slowly and heard a grinding sound in his joints. Somehow he couldn't move.

Suddenly the tiny apartment was colder than the Grey City. The Plant shuddered. Legato loomed over him, hair hiding both of his eyes, as cruel and deadly as any Grigori Alley Plant. But so unlike a Plant Angel. Their hair was every shade of blonde possible, his hair was blue…

"Hey!" The voice of his brother was short, curt, and a wonderful thing to hear.

All of sudden, Vash found himself able to move. He stumbled before sitting down again. "Comfy?" Knives asked, casually toweling his short bristly hair as if nothing had happened.

Legato was paging through a book now, as docile as a kitten. Strangely, Vash soon found himself aware of every bone in his body down to the tiny bones in both inner ears. "Ma… Knives, I'm glad you're back." His gold eyes were wide and insane looking.

Take that back, Vash though to himself, he's as innocent as a feral cat. "What is with that boyfriend of yours?" he said finally.

His twin pulled a box from under his arm. "Oh never mind that," Knives said cheerfully.

Vash sputtered. He couldn't take it any more. "Your boyfriend," he said, seething with rage, "Is a freak."

Knives cradled the box in his arms as if it was a baby. "Tessla likes Legato."

"Oh please," Vash rolled his eyes, "Tessla is a maniacal bitch. Her opinion doesn't matter in this at all."

ooo

Achoo!

The loud sneeze echoed through the limo. The driver turned around to see Tessla rubbing at her nose, half of her shoulder length hair loose from its usual up-do. While Tessla did bother him, he was still polite enough to ask her how she was. "Are you okay, Miss Nikola?"

Tessla squinted, grey eyes watery, before she nodded, "Probably some dust. It's nothing."

ooo

Knives shook his head. "Ridiculous," he said, "Tessla is a sweet person who has been through a hard time in her life."

"Okay," Vash said evenly, "I'll give Ole' Stumpy the benefit of the doubt. For now."

"Ridiculous," Knives said so icily that Vash squirmed in his chair or what passed for it.

"Ridiculous," Legato suddenly chimed in. "Absolutely ridiculous." He looked positively insane and enjoying every moment of Vash's discomfort. "Positively ridiculous… beyond ridiculous…."

"Legato?"

"Yes, my Master?"

Did Legato just call Knives master? Vash furrowed his brow. Did they have one of those weird S&M things going on?

"Shut up," Knives said, rolling his eyes.

Vash gritted his teeth. "I think," he said, "I'll let you and your lover have a spat without me."

Knives was beside him in a second, all smiles and innocent looks. "Vash," he practically cooed, "My dearest, darling brother. How could you think of leaving?"

His arms went around Vash's shoulders. Vash pushed them back off. "Simple," he said, "I just get up and walk out the door."

Before he could blink, his brother shoved the box in his hand, all fire and wrath. "Fine!" Knives snapped, water flying from his hair, "Take it and go! See if I care! I spend my time making this for you…"

"You said that you wanted me to meet your new lover."

Knives shrugged, suddenly casual. "I was going to give this to you for your birthday."

Legato looked at them and wandered back into the kitchen. Vash could hear the sound of the fridge opening and closing, following by chewing noises. "Our birthday isn't for a couple of months," Vash said, opening the box.

A silver .45 Long Colt lay in there, casually wrapped. "Well?" Knives asked, eyes gleaming. Vash wasn't quite sure if the gleam was excitement or madness. Maybe both.

"I don't like guns," he said flatly.

ooo

"Now stopping at District 11. Next stop, district 10." There was a pause and a slight crackle. "Dumb gits," the AI said in a voice that was filled with more whiskey tones and salty language then a sailor. "Wish they would they would all go bugger themselves as they ruddy well should."

Strangely, to Meryl it sounded like a female Humphrey Bogart.

The feminine tones of the AI controlling the subway had changed over the fifty years since it had first been installed on all Morningstar City Lines. At first, it had been a dulcet and kind voice or so Meryl's mother had told her. Meryl wasn't quite sure that the voice had ever been kind. It had probably come off the production line with the saltiest voice that the makers had to offer.

"Alright, you blokes, get in the tube… move or lose it."

Meryl sighed and buried her head in her hands. The smell of the subway changed gradually turned from sewers to ionized metal and plastic. They were in the new tunnels of the subway. Holographic signs flashed along the reddish-pink walls fast enough to make anyone sick if they looked at them for more than a few minutes. "Isn't this wonderful, Meryl, Ma'am?" Millie said, eyes wide with excitement.

Meryl gave her partner a rather sour look.

All Millie could do was giggle lamely. "Ah, well," she said, "I think it's wonderful and nothing could change my mind."

There was a young couple on the train… teenagers by the look of it on the other side of the train car. Two blonde teenagers more interested in each other than what was going on in their car. Their mouths were together and they seemed two seconds from ripping off their clothes and just doing it on the floor in front of everyone.

Kids, Meryl said to herself, before she added, what am I talking about? I'm twenty-one for crying out loud. She sighed and shook her head. "Hey Annie," Meryl heard the kid whisper to the girl, "You know what I'm thinking about?"

The girl giggled and blushed, pushing her long matted and braided hair out of the way. At least her oversized sweater and his red shirt were nowhere near the candybopper style of nowadays. For the life of her, Meryl couldn't understand the appeal of wearing trash and stuff found in the kitchen.

Millie elbowed her in the rib. "Isn't this fun, Meryl? I mean look at this, Ma'am. Young love is so cute."

"Not a bit," she moaned and tried not to think of food.

Meryl was a very, very unhappy person. "Hey!" someone said as they tugged on her cloak.

She looked. It was the kid who had ran his cooler over her foot. "What is it?" Meryl asked.

Millie, ever the peacemaker, wagged one of her fingers to and fro. "Now Ma'am," she said, "What would the chief say if he knew how rude you were acting."

"I had a bad day," she sighed, before glaring at the kid, "What is it?"

He leaned on one foot and then the other, twiddling his thumbs. When he spoke, it was almost as if he had planned the speech. "I'm sorry, Ma'am. It was rude of me to assume that you're old and you have every right to say how I'm wrong and that it won't change a thing."

"Oh," Meryl said, willing to take an apology, even a canned one from the brat. "Apology accepted."

"In fact," the kid said, handing her a cup of juice, "Here, this one is on me."

ooo

The Northern Tunnels had once been the basis of the subway system, but most had fallen into despair and were commonly denied by the government (or what passed for a government in the Grey City). Here and there were old markers, monuments perhaps to a bygone era. Markers such as "A Line" and "Tickets".

"This," BDN would say to his men, "Is my kingdom. Respect it and make it shine!"

Old soda machines and snack machines could be found in old stations with names such as Times Square and many others.

BDN stood in one such station observing a skeleton of an ancient New Yorker (although BDN had no idea that the man was from New York nor did he have the concept of New York City) that sat on a nearby bench. It had bright clothes on with a camera looped around its neck. The skeleton's propped up a sign that read "Lost… Please Help."

Strangely, from the lack of dried muscles to the too-white appearance of its bones, it looked almost plastic. BDN leaned in closer to inspect the skeleton. He tapped the tiny screws with his blunt fingers and found the inscription "Made in China" on the back.

"Okay, my plastic friend," BDN said to the fake skeleton, "You'll be witnessing greatness soon."

There was a sound of squealing brakes and a train slid into the station. "Boss!" One of the Bad Lads called out, "It's right on time and shinier than ever!"

"Only I can tell when a train is shiny," BDN shot back, "Tell Kaite to hurry it up next time."

"I hear you," said Kaite, stepping out of the front car, "They'll be coming to in a few minutes."

"Brilliant," the leader of the notorious Bad Lad gang said, "Let's see how bright she glows."

…to be continued.


	11. Freed Bird Fly

Author's Notes: This chapter took awhile to put out with school work and other matters. I'll post a more edited version later, but in the meantime, enjoy. 

XI. Freed Bird Fly

For a second I could hear a small childish voice coo in my head. It almost seemed gleeful. The rest faded away.

It took me a minute to figure out that was the Plant speaking her thoughts and somehow for a second I had heard them. The Plant fluttered her tiny wings, cupped her breasts, and gave me a blood-smeared smile before dragging the tiny dog corpse as well as the corpse of the other plant back into the core. The liquid inside the core promptly turned pink.

"The Grey City smells like rust in the evening," I said to myself, enjoying another cigarette. When lung cancer finally comes along, I decided I would be ready.

Or maybe it's just blood.

Or maybe my nose was finally giving up and I really couldn't tell anymore. But this section of the city smelled like flowers, expensive food, and bad expensive aftershave. All the stuff I can't afford and more. All the stuff that seemed to mock me. Buy us, Wolfwood, they call to me and I answer them by telling them to bite me. God, I hate being poor.

"So are you thinking or just trying to take a dump?" a sugary voice said behind me.

Elendira.

Damn it all to hell.

"Do you know how transparent you are?" he asked, waving a hand in front of my face.

I glowered at him. "No," I finally said, drawing the word out as long as I could with my lungs of tar and soot. "But I assume you're going to tell me."

Elendira fluttered his eyelashes. Maybe he was trying to be coy or some shit like that. I didn't know. I certainly didn't care. "Anyway," I said, puffing smoke in his face, "I thought you were going to leave… in fact… I thought you left."

"Oh," Elendira said, nose wrinkling in disgust, "Do you have to blow that foul cheap thing in my face?"

I grinned and leaned forward to puff some more smoke in his face. There was something about the way his face wrinkled that made my shitty day seem a little more bearable. Before I could even puff, Elendira was behind me. Elendira had pinned my arms behind me, a knee wedged painfully in my crotch, and was directing my still lit cigarette to one of my nostrils. "Puff that thing in my elegant face one more time… just one more time… I dare you."

Despite the pain in my shoulders and groin, I had to add one more insult. Perhaps I was the biggest idiot in the world. "I just have to ask you one thing."

Elendira's lips peeled back and he scowled. "What?"

"Do you put your make up with a puffy thing or do you cake it on with a trowel?" I grinned, "Come on, smoking ministers are dying to know."

He stomped on my foot, I cursed and backed away like a fucking jackrabbit on crack. My foot hurt, my nose felt a little singed, and most of all I was sure my pride was wounded. My ego was just fine and decided to laugh at my pride's predicament. Meanwhile it asked my libido to join in and they all played cards and went out for pizza. The end. I wish.

"Listen here," Elendira said, holding me up and pressing me against a wall, "We're setting up something big… really big… got that."

"Got it," I croaked, my eyes focused on all ten nails. "Crystal."

Light exploded behind my eyes. I think at one point I nearly blacked out, because the next thing I remember seeing were Vash's gloved fingers snapping in my face. "Hey." Snap. "Are you." Snap. "All right?"

Snap, snap, snap. "Are you all right? Good, you're still breathing." Snap, snap. "Respond, will'ya?" God, I was getting irritated. So irritated the next time he moved to snap, I stuck his fingers up his nose. "Oh really mature, Wolfwood," he said, only it came out "Doh, bearry baturu, Ufuud." But let's not argue semantics. It's annoying enough. He pulled his fingers out his nose, "Do you have anything better to do than to stick other people's fingers up their nose?" He stopped and pointed at something above my shoulder, "Do you have to bring that thing everywhere?"

"Uh."

Yeah, wonderful communication skill we got going there, Nicky, one of the nuns from my childhood might say and crack a ruler over my fingers. These weren't ordinary nuns. No siree. These were nuns you would fear for life. Nunzilla. They might have put the fear of God into me but I was cynical. Besides, if you knew their vision of god, well… never mind.

"Cross Punisher," he said and pulled me to my feet.

I had to shake a ton of snow out of my hair and suit. It was grey, just like the… well damn. I didn't remember taking Cross Punisher out of the closet this morning. Okay, Wolfwood, I told myself, remember that woman with the eye patch who disappeared without a trace? "That has to be it."

"What has to be it?" Vash asked me. Damn, hadn't realized I had said that out loud. Yeah, real smooth move there, Nick. "Let's face it, Wolfwood… you've gone senile." He smirked. For some reason Vash was really good at being a smartass.

"Senile? Senile? Who's the senile one, you century old excuse for a Plant? Obviously once you get past the hundred year mark the memory is first to go."

"Obviously you're the one if you're slipping up on insults like that!"

"Bastard!"

"Cigarette breath!"

"Is that supposed to hurt? Girl faced!"

"Hawk nose!"

"Brat!"

"Hunchback!"

"Lush!"

Vash blinked, "That was a low blow, Wolfwood. A real low blow."

I snorted and lit up a cigarette, "Want me to go lower, Tongari? I can if you wa-"

"No," he said, shaking his head and waving his arms at the time, "Oh, heavens, no. No way. That lush comment… I don't want to see what's lower." Vash tilted his hand and patted something under his coat next to his hip, "Besides, I've got enough problems of my own."

"Nice gun," I said.

For someone whose supposed to be a "pacifist to end all pacifists" Vash was a bit, well let's say paranoid. He was highly trained in firearms and could lay any historical gunslinger low. Sure, I'm bragging about my friend, but don't let him hear me say it. He'll whine and cry about how I emphasis his worst feature.

Vash looked down at the gun-shaped lump and pulled it away to reveal the gunbelt he now wore. "What was I supposed to do? Turn down my brother's gift?"

"Custom handgun?" I snorted out a cloud of smoke, "In your case I would say yes."

"How did you know it was a custom?" he sputtered, pulling his coat closed again.

I shrugged. Not like I needed to do anything more. "Lucky guess, really?" And I really was guessing. Honestly, I was.

"That's a real good guess," he rubbed his arms and sneezed, "Can we go inside before we freeze to death? It's not on my to do list."

"Maybe it's on mine."

He sniffed, "Idiot. I know it's not on yours. There's a winter storm warning out. Did you hear the Blizzard warnings?" He shivered. "Supposed to be the worst ever in a decade."

Paranoid as ever, Vash. I was about to argue that we should just stay out here and chat when the wind blew out my cigarette. I stared at the dead end and tried to light up again. Between the wind and my shitty lighter, I couldn't even get a spark. "Yeah," I said, "I'm game. Let's go inside."

ooo

So how did a person like me meet a twit like Vash? Well, it's a good story actually. I really don't have time to tell this and if you knew the situation I was in, you would understand completely. You know… why a guy like me who obviously can't afford anything won't take anything from Mr. Rich Trust Fund. Well, that's a good question and it has an even better answer.

Three years ago, I had gotten my hands on a motorcycle. One of those legendary ones, can't remember the name off the top of my head. I think it started with an h. Well, that doesn't really matter, does it?

So, the morning after I got the motorcycle, I went out to take it for a drive. I was going up to sector one and tear through that park that's up there and scare rich folk as they padded along in their coats and walked their tiny dogs that could fit in a tearcup, also into thick coats along with these little bootie things. Like the dogs ever walked around. They would walk around the park until the little dog started yelping. Then they would snap their fingers, their servants would dig a little hole in the ground so the dog could do its do, and then they would go on. I could imagine the looks on their face as I rode by.

"Bring us back presents!" the orphans at St. Mark's told me as I got ready to the start the motorcycle in the front yard.

"I don't think that would be possible," one of the nuns sniffed, "How could he carry anything on that beastly machine?" Several of the others nodded in agreement. "Honestly, Father Wolfwood, you're setting a bad example for the orphans."

I adjust my sunglasses. The open road was before me and I had all day to explore. "Ah come on, Sister Carol Mary," I said flipping them up, "I'm sure that these kids have seen worse than a motorcycle."

Sister Carol Mary looked at me with her bottle-lensed glasses. She was a small thing, all wrinkled like old food (which described most of the stuff in my fridge and come to mind, still does describe the stuff in my fridge). "You're a Heck's Angle on wheels."

The kids giggled as Livio and the nuns herded them back instead. "Don't you mean Hell's Angels?"

She popped me on the head. "Despite you being a minister," Sister Carol Mary said, "We will not allow such a filthy mouth in our midst."

"Yeah, yeah," I said, looking at the window. "I'll be sure to clean it up a little bit. But just for the record, I make no promises."

The orphans had their noses pressed to glass as if expecting something. I smiled and waved. Suddenly, right on cue, twenty-five tongue stuck on and pressed against glass. It was their way of saying "We better get presents or else!" Or maybe, they were just being typical kids, which was good, meant my job was done.

"Make no promises again," she repeated, swatting out at the bike, "I can guarantee that your stuff will be in the trash by the next pick up."

So, I took a joyride across the city. I had no reason to do it, but I guess it's a good way of relieving stress. Hell, there are worse ways to do so. And aside from smoking and a little nip here and there, I wasn't going to do most of them.

I ended up near the boundary between the sector three biodome and sector one. It was an okay neighborhood, if you liked old houses. Personally, I've never seen what was so hot about them in the first place. So I rode around the biodome. It was a large steel bump in the middle of the city. Would have been pretty cool if it had been glass, then I could peer in, I decided.

But then, what good would that do for me. The domes are close to impossible to get in for someone like me of course. And what I was doing was illegal as well. Well, I had a good idea that it probably was. But, hell, I was going to do it anyway. Better to spend a night in slammer than not to.

Looking back, it probably was a bad idea. Maybe that bike had been set up to fail. Maybe I was just a bit full of myself, but for whatever reason, I was trying to do a trick and the thing skidded across the ice on the street.

I tried to control the bike, but damned thing brush against a stack of crates. I could feel splinters entering my skin, but thought nothing of it. I was thinking something along the lines of "Why didn't you buy a helmet, you idiot? You stupid, stupid mess up."

The bike skidded again, but I was too busy trying to control the dang thing to see where I was going. Truth of the matter was I didn't care as long as I somehow stopped. I wanted it to go right, the bike went left. I say no, it said, "Go faster? Sure."

After a few seconds (minutes?), I finally got it out of the spin. I laughed. I had faced the road and one. Confidently, I looked up to see a fast approaching wall. Oh, shit, I said to myself, because I knew it was going to hurt.

I know that they say when you go through something like that you blackout. I dunno, but I've never had anything like that happen to me. The instant the bike hit the wall, I knew that this was the moment of truth. I leaned back, planted my feel against the handlebars of the bike and pushed back. I guess it was either the shockwave, me, or both, but I managed to fly across the alley into a pile of snow covered trashbags.

"Uggg, my head," I groaned and wiped at my mouth.

No blood, that was good. The world was bits of light. I lay there for a few seconds wondering if I somehow got one of those head injuries. Finally, I shifted, and the shattered remains of my sunglasses fell down my nose. I wasn't too badly hurt… which was good. Unless…

You hear about it the time in horror stories. The guy survives a horrible accident and has only a couple of bruises and cuts. So, he goes home to see his wife and his wife screams because he's a hideous bloody corpse. Or there's the variation where he dies and everyone ignores him because he's a ghost. Well, I wasn't just going to walk home. I was going to walk up to what remained of my bike and I was going to look for the corpse that used to be me.

"Shit, shit, shit… that's some wreck."

My motorcycle had left a crater in the wall as well as a burn mark. Maybe that burn mark was me. So I poked the spot and kicked around in the snow around the wreckage. No corpse, no body parts.

"Fact remains," I said to myself, lighting a cigarette, "You escaped death, Nick. You're a lucky guy."

All that I got in return was the caws of a few thin vultures. I was most definitely alive if animals responded to me. Or maybe animals just responded to ghosts. "You're being a fool, Nick. A hell of a fool."

My watch was smashed beyond repair. It was a cheap one anyway. But as for me, I took a look at a nearby sign. Great, just, great. 99 miles from home. Give or take a couple of miles. "But are you going to let a thing like that stop you?" I asked myself. The answer was a definite no. "Right, so you're gonna walk on home. Right now."

My next step took me right on the patch of ice that killed my bike.

"Ugh," I groaned from my position on the ground. "This is gonna be harder than I thought."

ooo

"Wanna beer?" Vash asked as he unlocked the door to his penthouse. My mouth dropped open once again. You never really get quite used to a place like that. "I picked up some ealier."

"Depends."

"Depends on what?" he asked, dusting snow off his coat sleeves.

I could give him the nice answer or the jackass answer. "Well?" he asked, trying to mimic my accent.

Ahh, Vash, you pushed me to it. Jackass answer it is. "Depends on if you drank them all or not."

He produced to glare a me, "Wolfwood, you are such…"

"Bastard?"

"No!"

"Lug?"

"No!"

"Son of a bitch?"

"No,"

"No," Vash said and looked offended as he pulled off his boots and wiggled his toes. "Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?"

If I could, I would light up, and blow smoke in his face like he hated. "No, but I kiss yours with it."

"You wouldn't want to kiss my mother."

Vash tossed me a beer from his fridge. Even though I wasn't gonna take any of his immortal Plant charity, bumming beers and hanging out at his place didn't qualify. I popped it open and tossed the bottle cap at his head. He dodged, but it bounced off a wall and landed in his hair. "Which one?"

He winced. "Do you really want to know?" He picked the bottle cap out of his hair. "Either one is bad enough.

I swigged my beer. This was awkward. "Uh, now you're starting to make me feel guilty."

Vash grinned, broadly. "Maybe that's a good thing after all," he said.

"You're the jackass… jackass." Damn, was obviously loosing my touch.

Vash walloped me on the head with my own beer bottle. God, I hated when he did that. He started chuckling. "Right, like that really bothers me."

I started grasping at straws. "Your mama!"

"Like that really works," Vash said, swiping my beer for himself, "Besides, I buy this beer. What do YOU buy?"

I thought about it for a couple of seconds. "That bag of chips," I said, pointing at said bag.

"Which came from money you borrowed from me…"

"Don't ever start."

He did. "Cheapskate. Let's see if I tell you about my day."

Okay, I didn't want to know about his day. It ends up one way. He ends up bawling like a little whiny baby. And we're not talking the occasional tear, you've got a valid reason, I feel sympathy for you. We're talking Livio-the-eternal-crybaby-style whining complete with clingness. Damn, you think he'd figure out what "Get off me before I run you into a nearest wall" meant after the first one hundred times. One time he clung to me, whining how "they" had been mean to me, so tightly that he cracked some of my ribs. See what I put up with this guy?

"Why would I want to know about your day? I get more kicks watching insects die after eating that white junk."

Vash's jaw dropped. "Wolfwood, that's mean!"

"It's honest."

He tossed the bottle at my head. "Geeze," he snapped, "Why should I tell you about these two insurance agents I met this morning? Ladies to be exactly. Two of them. Well, I'm not going to tell you and that's that."

I rolled my eyes. I used to not be good at that, but I guess I got good at it after being his friend. "Uh, you just did. So, why didn't you get insurance?"

Vash twiddled his toes and looked like a complete idiot while doing so. No, I really mean he was twiddling his toes. "Err, because what would good would life insurance be if I'm immortal?"

"Auto?"

"You know I'm not allowed to drive."

"Oh yeah," I said, "Thanks for reminding me, lush."

"Hey!"

"It's the truth," I said casually, "Besides, what if I wanted to meet one of these girls?" I tapped my fingers against the couch, "For uh… business matters."

Vash looked at me like he thought I was the world's biggest liar. "Sure… uh-huh."

"It's the truth."

He burst on into an ear to ear grin. It wasn't a fake grin, but I still wanted to smack him. "It's okay… they're cute… but you know what I'm gonna do?"

"Call them up?" I asked, "Get their address?"

Vash stared at me and grinned. "I am going to go…"

"Go what?"

"Gooo…"

"GO WHAT?" I snapped.

"Watch TV," he finally finished and turned on the TV.

Except instead of channeling surfing, he stared at the screen. His eyes widened and overall… well, he looked shocked. The headline "Subway Train Highjacking… many feared dead." blasted on the screen. "Vash," I asked, shaking his shoulders, "What's wrong?"

"Dear god," he said, apparently forgetting he didn't believe in a God at the moment.

"What, Vash?" I was getting more and more ticked off. My day sucked enough as it was, I didn't need another event like that."

Vash finally managed to speak. "I put them on that train."

Yeah. God hated me. Hated me a lot. That had to be the reason. "This," the newsperson said, continuing the report over Vash's girly screaming, "Is suspected to be the work of wanted fugitive Brilliant Dynamites Neon. Neon who had recently…" Oh, hell.

…to be continued.


	12. Pieces of History Part Two

Author's Notes: Another Pieces of History… in the form of Tessla's journal… meanwhile the BDN saga needs to written. 

XII. Pieces of History Part Two

They gave me this diary to write in because that stupid bitch woman thinks it would be a good idea to record the thoughts of a sentient being.

Whatever.

My thoughts are obviously too complex for any one of their species to get. Anything that can't make food without scorching it has to be bad.

Look at Rem for example. She burns food all the time. Each sausage she makes ends up as shriveled and blackened. They look like little pieces of coal.

One time, she brought them to me and they were burnt on one side and she cried Alex is dying you should pray pray pray and I said don't cry you stupid bitch he's going to die die die and I'm glad so she slapped me and said you don't know what I'm going through and I coughed up blood and said don't listen to my world and this is what happens so she cried and said I'm so sorry I take it back I take it back please please forgive me.

Lilies, lilies, stop bringing me lilies all I do is eat them. You can only eat flowers and that's the only thing they are good for.

My handwriting is hideous. Hope that doesn't happen again. That little outburst messed up my neat handwriting. And that is one of the few things I have left.

I don't know what that Alex twit saw in her, but I'm glad he's dead. Sure he said he would help me, but obviously the fact I was still suffering makes this point moot. Obviously if he cared about me and only me that much, I would still have both eyes.

Oh, the eye? That's an easy question to answer. One day I was reading an e-book, they only let me have the old ones. I think they're afraid that if it is a new book, that I will find a way to access things I should know. Like I'm some kind of thing so new that I could unlock things that shouldn't be unlocked. As if that would ever happen.

They came and took the book away from me. So I bit them. One of them screamed and slapped me. "Little brat," he snarled at me, "I'll teach you not to act like that."

So I bit him again. It was that stupid Steve guy, the one who smells like semen, beer, and vomit with the occasional whiff of urine entering the mix. That's when they did it. They said it was to take a sample. I doubt it though. I saw the way Steve leered at me. Obviously it was my punishment for biting him. Looking back now, I wish I had bitten harder because my teeth are coming out. They regrow in a few hours only to drop out again. I go to sleep with a sore mouth and wake up on a blood soaked pillow with little bits of bone scattered about.

I hate him. I hate this world. I hate everything in it. That's it for me in a nutshell.

I'm going to go to sleep now. Or try to. I try to tell the doctors that my leg is bothering me, but it's like they don't notice. It's like they don't care.

…to be continued.


	13. The Alley of Drunken Plants

XIII. The Alley of Drunken Plants 

Tongari finally quit screaming like a girl and gaped at the set. "This is just my luck," he said. "This is one of the worst days I have been through."

I tossed one of his boots at him. "Hey drama queen," I said as he somehow managed to dodge it. "Shut the hell up."

Most people dodge long before.

Vash wasn't most people. Hell, Vash wasn't "people". That didn't sound right. Probably isn't, but damn if I care. "Show off," I said.

Hopefully, I could get him to flip the channel to something that was better and less boringer (which is a real word, I promise) than the latest emergency of the city. Ask me if I care. The city terminally blows and it takes us for a ride. "Hey," Vash prodded my nose with the remote.

I stole it. "Jackass," Vash said pulling his boots back on.

So he proceeded to ground his elbow into my head. "Hey, listen up. Listen."

Fine, fine, I decided. If he was going to be such a bastard about it, maybe I should listen. "Yeah?"

He went through a long speech. I didn't listen. I flipped around past the commercials for candy bopper fashion. And for 19.99, you can dress your five year old girl as a pedophile's wet dream. Okay, this is coming from left field, but that's just simply wrong. Very wrong. I gaped at the set and Vash took my gaping as a response. He went whiny on me. "Come on," he said, "It's not that bad."

"What's not so bad?" I said, thinking maybe he was talking about those toddlers in tinfoil that waltzed across the screen at that very moment.

Vash looked at me as if he didn't believe me. I decided to elaborate. "Look, it's one of the most horrible things in the world. Terrible."

He nodded in agreement. "Of course it is."

You know the conversations where both people think they know what the other is talking about but they really aren't? Like in those shows I watch on ole' Tongari's set. I used to watch them on mine, but then the screen started going fuzzy and the audio went south. Course, it doesn't do that any more because I put my foot through the screen.

Yeah, I sorta regret doing that, but if you spend your life regretting… um… you… um…

Lemme think…

You regret yourself to death. "Oh," Vash said, "So you'll help me rescue the people from the subway."

I felt like lighting up and smoking my lungs blacker than black. I didn't and just gaped at him. "Wow," he said, "Just, wow. Here I thought that you were a horrid priest with lungs and a heart blacker than sin."

The commercial ended at that moment. This was good because my foot was starting to twitch and in a few moments, it would be good-bye television.

As well as good-bye generosity. Vash can be really even tempered, but I'm sure there's a limit. "Yeah," I said, thinking that for once he and I were on the channel for once, "I'm a regular Santa Claus, but no… there's a going to be a good show on." The television went off. "Hey," I said, grabbing for the suddenly gone remote, "I was watching that, you jackass."

"You can keep watch it if you help me." He looked like a borderline bully. I had a good idea what he now wanted. "You will help me… right, Wolfwood?"

I just had to open my mouth and ask.

"Absolutely not," I said.

I was going to stick to my decision. Like it or not, this was one preacher that wouldn't back down.

Vash glared back at me. "Why not?"

Because I didn't have to. I didn't want to. I really didn't see why this meant anything to Mr. Whining Crying Bastard. I could see how he was staring at me. Just daring to say something, anything. Well, I wasn't going to fall into that trap. Right. "Be-ca-us-eeee…" I said and said no more.

He smirked. "Be-ca-us-eeee isn't a reason. Hardly a reason. And if you don't come to help, I'll tell everyone you get misty-eyed every time you hear Puff the Magic Dragon."

My jaw gaped, "You call that a reason? That's the shittiest reason I have ever heard."

And I've heard some shitty reasons before… believe me. They're all over the chart from "I'm already married", "I gave at the office", and my personal favorite "Well, you're the only I've had sex with in the past few months…" (lying bitch) "…so the baby must be yours."

"Of course I call that a reason," he said smugly, like he knew I was going to say it, "But I didn't really have a reason to drag your frozen ass off the street."

Damn.

One of the things you should know before I go on and I know I have digressed a lot when I've telling this, but once I finish this thing I've been writing… well dang, this sentence is long… better add a period. There we go.

It must be said and must be said often in case I forget. And I'm probably going to forget it if I'm not remind of it by myself. Who has a bad habit of forgetting things. It's an endless cycle really. Vash is a conniving son of a bitch. He is manipulative, twisted, beyond twisted really. It is a wonder that I haven't strangled him yet. He's only got two moods. Perky-annoying and depressing-annoying. To say the least, they both annoy me. Heavily. As in one of these days, I might strangle him.

But that's not really the point here. The point here is that perky people should be dumped into someplace smelly and depressing. And then everyone who dumped them there should be given a pair of earmuffs. To block out the whining, in case you were wondering.

ooo

Before I go on any further and forget to tell the rest of this… how I met this arrogant, bristle-haired Tongari (It means spike, doesn't really translate well) and why I should probably regret meeting him in the first place.

So there I was, in the middle of the blistering cold, staring at the wreckage of my bike. From the ground. On the patch of ice I had slipped on. Stupid ice. I had also bit my tongue the moment I slipped.

"Jethuth Cryth," I managed to say around my sore tongue, which sounded stupid the moment I said it. "Thath ukin urth." Which translates to 'Jesus Christ, that fucking hurt' in case you're wondering.

I would have laughed, only my tongue felt like it was on fire and swelling and shrinking at the same time. All I was able to was spit blood and glare at the stupid patch of ice. Somehow, irony decided to put me on its shit list and keep me there. "Stupid irony," I said.

I spat against the stones and noticed that most of the bloody spit had froze. "Freakin' hell," I said.

I had at least three loose teeth in the back of my mouth. One of my fillings had been knocked out and I had lost part of one tooth. "This day is about to get hellish."

Or as close I could say to that.

I dusted off my pants the best I could, but I guess that some of the snow musta melted or something because my pants were soaked. "Great… just great."

There I was in a neighborhood I had never been in before. One of those old sectors where the number isn't double or triple or have a letter or color assigned to it. It was okay… I was expecting it to be a lot better.

It was supposed to have plush grass and cobblestone shit instead of asphalt. There were supposed to be children in the streets and moms walking home from the store. 'Cause in a world like that, moms' ain't gotta work… 'cause it's that perfect. Or if they do work, they're those corporate women in their tiny miniskirts. Tiny miniskirts are… well… tiny and they show off leg.

This was just the same frozen, god-forsaken hellhole as the rest of the city only the buildings were cleaner and the snow was more white than grey. It was still grey-colored snow, but a light grey… you know what I'm getting at.

Meanwhile my legs were frozen popsicles of ouch. My palms were scrapped to hell and what was left of my gloves was a lost cause. They were a lost cause even before I wiped out but now they had become even more of one. I then remembered my cigarette and went to tap ash from something that was no longer in my mouth.

There were no scorch marks on me so I guessed that it hadn't landed on me. But what were scorch marked compared to the rest of me. It then struck me like a ton of bricks. I began to feel ill as I mused over the answer. When I tripped on that patch of ice, I must have swallowed my still lit cigarette. "Shit."

I liked the sound of my voice so I cussed again. "Shit, shit, motherfucking, shit. Hell, damn."

My throat didn't feel like I had gargled nails, so I decided that my cigarette swallowing option was out of the question. It was a good thing too, since I didn't want to explain to the hospital what had happened. Didn't want to pay the bill either, but that's another matter entirely. So I decided to light another cigarette. I patted down my jacket and finally found a mashed cellophane packet. Either I didn't have many cigarettes or they were all smushed. I popped open the packet. Most of the cigarettes had been ripped open, which cause me to dump a good cloud of tobacco down my shirt.

I ripped open the package, pulling aside mangled bit of paper and filter trying to find at least one intact cigarette. I finally found one sad bent cigarette in the corner and managed to use my last match to light in the first time.

Heck, if I was going to walk home, I was going to walk home in style. "Yep, right home in st-"

"Momma, what's with that guy?"

"Just don't look at him. Keep walking."

I sighed and waved. Maybe talking out loud wasn't such a good idea. "Sorry, ma'am," I said, like Aunt Me- like the nuns taught me.

"See, mom?"

She covered her kid's eyes and glared at me. I smiled broadly until she turned the next corner. "Ungrateful piece of…"

I expected her to come charging around the bend… she never did.

What a minute, who was that woman I just said the name of?

Melisa?

Megan?

Melba?

Meryl?

That's funny, I can't remember the name.

No, it's probably not important. None of the names sound right.

Meh-

Meh-

Meh-l-

Oh screw it; it will probably come back to me. One of these days. One of these days, I decided and thought for a moment. Obviously, I had no other choice than to press on. What was I supposed to do? I didn't have enough for a bus fare or a subway token… mag-lev cars were supposed to be dirt cheap, but they took forever to get you where you wanted to be. Besides, I heard that they didn't smell good. That's irony speaking considering what happened to me a few years later. Hint, hint.

I smoked my cigarette while I tried to look for the nearest corner store. It was barely snowing, but it was cold as some of those rings of the hell the nuns were always talking about. Hey, I didn't spend all of my time in Sunday school asleep. And the rest, Livio told me in this weird voice that he sometimes used.

We (meaning the orphans) always used to try to get Livio to tell Ghost Stories when we were kids, but he would just start to go all tender-eyed crybaby on us. And then I would say "Suck it up, you baby." Which ended with him bawling like a baby.

Livio was always like that. It was just a Livo thing for Livio to do. And that was be a bawling baby. Just like a typical Livio thing to do. I'm just repeating myself here.

I managed to find the nearest and cheapest looking grocery store. You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about one of those good ole mom and pop things that you see on every street corner. The kind that still carry cheap candy. I slipped and slide my way across the street and then made a quick turn, nearly missing a few school children ("Watch it, Mister Man.") Apologized. ("I'm awfully sorry.) And nearly went postal (ministerial?) when the twerp flicked me off.

Honestly, where did these kids learn their manners these days? Stupid fucking brats probably just picked it up by listening to others…. curse… a blue streak… never mind.

The store was named Billy and Sons' Corner Store, but when I looked inside there was a girl at the cash register in a silvery top. Well, that is, it looked like a silvery top until I came in and discovered it was made of twisted, used gum wrappers and really didn't cover all that much.

"Can I help you?" she asked, leaning over in such a way that I could see her nipples.

Yeah, you can help me by wearing something decent and a bra. They were kinda on the saggy side to and come to think of it, there were wrinkles in her face. I guess she wasn't a "girl" after all. "I thought this grocery was called Billy and Sons' Corner Store."

She leaned forward and smiled with her yellowish teeth. "Sure is. This is Billy." She pointed to her chest. "And sons." And she pointed to some tiny dogs that were chewing on my slacks. "Aren't they cute?"

Yeah, cute if you like big eyed shivering yelping things with short fur. They were wearing little pink sweaters and diapers. Glittery pink sweaters and stupid diapers with shiny shit on it. "Well. I need a- wait, what's up with your clothes?"

She touched her flimsy excuse for a top. "This? You like it?"

"Umm," I said, trying to just say I wanted a freaking map… nothing more, nothing less.

Dumbass couldn't take my umm as a "Hell No." She fluttered her fake pasted on eyelashes. At least there was no one else in the store except for that person in the dairy isle and the person in the back. I couldn't see them, but apparently they were looking at brooms because I would see the sweeping end pop up every now and then. "It's what the teenagers are wearing."

Uh-huh. "Teenagers… um, yeah… sure…"

Billy took that as a cue to go on. "Oh yes, I read about it in the latest teen magazine. I get shipments of them once a week."

"Once a week," I repeated, nodding like a puppet, hoping they had some maps of the city. "Um, sure…"

"It's called candy bopper," she said and lit a cigarette, "It takes years off my face… don't you think?" And puts it on my tits, I wanted to add.

"Sure," I said, trying to find something to look at other than her face.

She moved slightly and I could see the hole in her neck. "Don't mind if I smoke?"

The tracheotomy didn't bother me so much as her saggy sagginess. "Nope."

"Oh, that's good." And then Billy covered the hole with her fingers as she took a puff on it. Then she took another. She wheezed slightly and said, "Doc doesn't want me to smoke any more."

"Err."

"But what the fuck does he know?"

One of Billy's "sons" threw up on my shoe. Which was my cue to exit into the cold again.

Maybe I could find some cheap coffee or an abandoned Toastypack Warming Pad and make my way back to the church. I knew what the nuns would say. I could take it like a man.

ooo

"There are certain things I can't do," I said slowly, hoping he would get it. "This is one of them-"

He interrupted me like a jackass. "That's what she said to me when she left me." He hung his head and looked at the picture next to the TV of a woman hugging a younger him. (even though he looked the same age as he did now.) "Seems stupid but I still-"

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, Emo Boy. You want to run off into danger. Go ahead."

Vash was already at the door, coat on and tucking his gun into what seemed to be a coat pocket. "Fine," he said, all spike and no brain. "I will."

"Fine," I said, lighting a cigarette just to irk him. "But I can't let you go out on your own."

"Great," he said, "Marvelous. You sure?"

Guessing that I was getting through to him I said, "Sure… I promise. Pinky swear."

"Oh, that's great." He said, "We're on a rescue mission."

Shit.

"That's wonderful," I said, it finally hitting me like a ton of bricks, which is a real cli… clinical… clich… clich… cliché, I think… thing to say but it sounds cool. "Fuck. What did I get myself into?"

Vash finished locking the door. Somehow he had gotten me distracted and led me on a walk right out the door. So much for beers in front of a TV that actually worked. So much for porn in the afternoon. To aid insult to injury, Vash threw an arm around my shoulder. "Keep those chin whiskers up, Wolfwood."

I pushed his arm off my shoulder as we entered the elevator. "Can it, I've had a rough day."

He held both hands up. "Okay, okay… I get what you're saying." He smiled and back off. "No need to get pissy."

I ignored him and shouldered Cross Punisher as he pressed the button for the ground floor. Nothing like a series of sucky events to ruin your day. "I have every right, thank you very much."

"But…"

"Tongari… can it."

Vash half-scowled, half-pouted. Kinda like the kids I raise down at the orphanage. "There you again with calling me Tongari."

I leaned back against the wall of the elevator. Dang thing took forever to go up and down, might make the most of this trip. "Okay… what do you have against it?"

He didn't even have to think about it for long. "I don't know what you're saying."

"Well…"

Vash didn't even let me finish my sentence, the bastard. "Tongari this… Tongari that… Tongari, Tongari, Tongari…"

"Okay, I get it. I call you that a lot. It's a nickname." I stretched and nearly knocked Cross Punisher over. I struggled and finally got it back in its standing position. Out of irritation, I said, "You ass."

"Ass?" He rolled his eyes, "Anyway, I have no idea what it means."

We waited for the elevator to hit the ground floor in silence. It was as if he had completely killed the conversation. That's right, Tongari, you spiky-haired wonder of the city, you are a conversation killer. In this city you have to play hard and talk fast.

And we are doing NEITHER!

"Spikey," I said.

"Huh," he said, but he said it a foreign language. Anyway I think that's what he said, the show off. And then in English, "Is that what you're calling me or is that what it means?"

"Yeah," I said, watching the numbers on the elevator slowly click by. Why does anyone need to live in a 260 story skyscraper anyway? "It's Japanese."

"Wolfwood?"

"What?"

"I don't speak Japanese."

"I figured."

Vash sighed and then stuck his hands in his pocket. "Okay, so where did you learn the Japanese."

I didn't give it much thought. "Don't know. Don't care. But I'm shitty at speaking it."

"Oh," Vash said, "Then why do you even bother if you're so lame at it?"

At that moment, we finally got to the ground floor. I sighed and would have pounded on the doors if they didn't opened. "Did anyone tell you that you're an ass?"

"You did," Vash said smugly as we walked out into the cold air. "But I guess it takes an ass to know as asshole."

"Chilly air," I said, and shouldered Cross Punisher.

Vash looked at me and shook his head. "Weatherman said there is going to be a blizzard."

A snowflake landed on my nose. I brushed it off, "You call that a blizzard?"

He looked up and held out his hand. "Well the report said-"

No other snowflakes fell. I looked up as well, trying to find Vash's blizzard. "Nope… still cloudy."

Vash blinked. "That means it's going to snow."

"It's cloudy all the time, you dumbass Tongari."

"Dumbass."

"Yeah, dumbass. Don't we have something to do?"

Vash went into panic mode and tore down the street. "Ohmygodthegirls. WhatamIgonnado?"

Yeah, all run together like that. That's the only way I can write it out. "You know…"

Vash whirled around and managed not to slip on the sidewalk. "What!"

"Ooh," I said, "Someone got up on the wrong side of the donut."

He glared. "Look, we can try to rescue them. That's the keyword, Wolfwood. Try." He walked up to me and waved his arms around. "Try. Try. That's all there is to it."

Dolt. I hit myself in the face. "Um, the subway entrance is that way."

He looked in the direction I was pointing. "Okay," he said, squinting his eyes. "How can you tell?"

This was going to be good. "Because I read the sign."

He scrambled and looked for the sign everywhere. When he was finished and called it quits, it turned out it was right over his head. I pointed to it, shit-eating grin on my face. "Right there, you dumbass Tongari."

Vash glared at me and stormed off in the other and this time right direction. He didn't ask me to follow so I didn't. Maybe he would forget about it and let me stay there. Where else could I go? I was miles away from my apartment and didn't have the key to Vash's. Something about me smoking the place up and leaving a smell. What did he know?

"Wolfwood, stop lagging."

Damn, he noticed.

I picked up speed and was nearly by his side when he stopped walking. "What is it now?" I asked, tapping him on the back, "You get cold feet?"

Vash was peering around the corner of some alley. "Do you know where we are?"

"No…" I rolled my eyes. "I don't live here."

He continued to look into the alley and ignored me.

"Hey, what the-" I started to yell out before he turned around and made all sorts of hushing noises as he waved his arms.

"Be quiet."

"Why should I be?"

He pointed so I looked in as well.

It was a long alley filled with glass tubes. Murky water filled each and every tube I could see. I assumed there would be more because it seemed to be a twisty alley. Vash was already creeping past the narrow entrance.

The tubes looked empty, not scary looking.

Then a hand with long deformed fingers pressed against the glass of the tube. The fingers flexed in the murky water that was a dull yellow. A bird flew in from the entrance. Vash and I watched as it collided against the top of the bulb, cracking it slightly and leaving a bloody stain. Almost instantly, a mouth pressed itself against the glass and a long grayish-pink tongue licked against the glass. "That's a Plant," I said.

"Everlett's Tube," Vash muttered.

"What?" I said, tearing my eyes away from the pale hand and licking mouth. "What did you say?"

"Everlett's Tube," he repeated before adding, "This is what they used to keep my sisters in for the longest time. Apparently it was the fashionable thing to do."

"Ewww."

"And eventually the lack of space drives them insane." A deformed wing pressed against the glass and was pulled away to reveal a face peering against the glass. It was much too low and to make matter worse, the mouth near the top was still trying to lick at the bloodstain. "You should both fear and pity them," Vash said, face paler than usual. "The Plant Angels of Grigori Alley."

"Ewwww."

"You said that already."

"Well," I said hoping that we wouldn't have to go through there, "Eww again."

The face turned to look at me and then another face joined it. Hands pressed against the glass of another tube. "So it also makes them deformed?"

Vash shook his head. "No… it's not like that at all. You see, they just cram Plant after Plant into here and never build any more tubes. No Last Runs either. Just Plants in an access tunnel with panels that you can remove to get to emergency exits for the underground."

The faces stared at me. I stared back. "Well, we don't have to go through there?"

"Nope."

"Then why did you tell me to shush?"

He looked in the alley again. "Because they might hear you."

"Stupid reason. How can they hear through the glass?"

Vash chewed on one of his gloves.

"I mean the glass is how thick again?"

He ignored me.

"And they're in how much gunk again?"

"Feet. Gallons," he said, "But their hearing is incredibly sensitive."

"Meaning?" I asked.

I hate when people don't explain things to me. So what if I dropped out of school? That doesn't mean shit. "Meaning they don't hear what you're saying, but trust me they know you're there."

Several faces were looking at us from the bulbs. Their eyes were pure white and I wondered if they were blind. "Hearing is all they can do. They're close to blind, nearly mute, and no more intelligent than a small child."

"But don't children fry ants with magnifying glasses?" I tried to crack as we walked past the alley. I could feel breath on the back of my neck somehow, though when I looked behind me, no one was following me. "And torture puppies and kittens?"

Vash glared at me. "For your sake, that better be a joke… because it wasn't funny."

"Actually it wasn't."

"Well, it was very lame."

"How lame?"

"Very," Vash said and as we went around the corner, he went "Oh shit" under his breath.

His dumb hairdo was in the way so I couldn't what the "oh shit" was about. The front of his hair deflate? Someone tearing down a donut shop? "What is it?"

Vash looked rather put off. "Cops."

And he was right. We both don't like cops. For Vash it's because they do jack-shit and they suspended his license again. Remember how I said that Vash likes to drink? See, that's where it landed him.

As for me…

Let's just say too many trips to the cops as a kid. Something about pick pocketing and stealing cigarettes by kicking the machine in the right spot. If they didn't want me pinching cigarettes from their lousy machine then they should have made it kick proof.

Also… Livio sucks at keeping a look out.

Vash sighed as we ducked around the corner again. "So much for Plant A. We need a Plan B."

"So how many people are you responsible for?" I asked, knowing he probably didn't have a Plan B.

Vash thought about it. He tapped his foot against the icy ground and managed not to slip. "Hmmm… well I would say…"

"Say what?"

"Say…"

He was being slow as hell. "Say what?"

"I could probably count the number on one hand," he said, fake smile on his face. "Although I think we should save the whole train."

"The whole train? The only way to them is blocked off."

He nodded. "That's right… I know we can do it. I know another way."

Oh no. Damn. He smiled this ear to ear smile. It was rather creepy. "Stop doing that. That's creepy."

"Think, Wolfwood, think," Vash said and tapped his head. "What other ways did I mention?"

I thought about it for about five seconds. "Oh no…"

"Oh yes."

"You said we weren't going into Grigori Alley!" I said, the memory of those insane Plants still fresh in my mind.

Vash had a comeback. "So… that was when I thought we could just enter a subway station and walk along the rails."

I was going to say something snide when all of a sudden, it seemed like time was a little more sluggish. Vash was a Plant Statue, leaning on a tank near the entrance to the alley looking like he wanted to add on something.

"Hypnosis," said a woman's voice, "Selective and beautiful."

Behind me was none other than Dominique. Her damn hat was pulled over her good eye and her shirt was slightly unbuttoned. "Got to love it," she said.

"Love what?"

She tapped her eye patch. "Selective hypnosis. I could've frozen you as well. I should've done it. It would've been the best choice of actions. But that would get us nowhere."

"Shoulda, coulda, woulda," I said, glaring at her. "Can we get on with it?"

Dominique shook her head. "I said before… you would be better off frozen like Plant boy over there."

She was good at her work even if I didn't know how she did it. I didn't even want to know how she got nearly everything to freeze but me. "Okay,' I said, "You've obviously got something to tell me even if I don't want to listen."

Dominique chucked like she thought that was funny. It wasn't, but to humor her, I gave her a quick grin. "You seem to catch on quickly," she said, "Was that doofus I dragged out of that run down hellhole you call a church a completely different person?"

"He was the same person," I said and felt stupid for referring to myself in the third person, "And he thinks you're a bitch."

"I think you're an asshole," she snapped back.

"Well at least we're getting somewhere." I grumbled.

She mused herself by pushing Tongari over a little more. Somehow he remained standing. "Millions said you passed your first assignment."

Okay… well that's great… I guess. The boss who happens to be Vash's twin brother thinks I did something great. Or passed as the one-eyed bitch said. "Okay…. so I passed."

She nodded. "That's the point. You passed."

"That's good, I guess. So what's the whole point of this?" I asked, lighting another cigarette since my old one was going out. Vash still wasn't moving so he couldn't bitch. "For shits and giggles?"

"Something like that."

Great. Was I going to spend the rest of my days looking a frozen world? "Are you going to actually tell me something?"

Dominique smirked. "You should be glad I can't use the Demon's Eye forever. I'm not that powerful."

"Get to the point."

She yawned. "With this level of rudeness from you, I might forget my orders."

"Try it and I'll kill you."

Dominique cracked up. Well, she didn't make any noise, but she clutched her shaking sides. Finally she looked at me with good eye. "Your threats are useless, you sorry excuse for a priest."

"Okay," I said, "My threats are useless and I am scum. I get it."

"And…" she began.

"Don't start." I rolled my eyes. "I'm the bottom of the bottom."

She smirked. "That's a start."

"Well aren't you being a perfect saint?"

"Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not." She shrugged. "I am to deliver this message." With that, Dominique clicked her heels and straightened up. "This is from Lord Millions himself. 'I would congratulate you, but it gives your species hope, so I won't.'" Her voice was dry and hollow sounding.

"Then what did you just do just now, you lowlife," I grumbled around my cigarette.

"'I said I would congratulate you… but you didn't hear me say anything remotely positive.'" Dominique droned on.

"You must have the message memorized."

She rolled her eyes and continued. ""In case you're wondering this speech is not memorized, but rather dictated from me through my most loyal serv- servan- telepath.'"

"So what happens when I speak?"

"'Obviously,'" Dominique said in that droning voice, "'Legato says what you are saying. Considering your performance in your mission this morning-"

"What mission?" I asked, "You asked me to take care of some plantlings for an hour long field trip."

"'Exactly. I needed to know what your opinion of plants was.'"

I scowled. "I'm already friends with your brother, Millions. That should tell you something."

"'It doesn't tell me enough… obviously, even you should get that. Which, of course, you haven't."

"I get that."

"'Of course. And you passed the assignment. Not exactly flying colors, but I can't expect a mere human or yourself to understand it.'"

"And?" I asked.

Dominique's jaw trembled. "He says to tell you," she said in her own voice, "That it's up to you to keep Vash safe. It's not just on your head but also on the heads of the orphans you take of. I don't pity your plight, Wolfwood."

"Well that makes the two of us-"

"You talking to me?" Vash said just as he stumbled, now unfrozen.

His hand knocked off the lid of the tank and went in with a wet-sound plop sound. "Yeah, I was. Well that makes the two of us the craziest people on the planet."

"And one of us the slimiest," Vash said, pulling his arm out, which was now covered in something green and slimy. "Ewww. So how do we get into the alley?"

I smirked. "Hey, why are you asking me?"

"Because, I thought maybe you had some ideas."

"Oh, no," I said, waving my arms around, "Don't ask me. This was your idea." I puffed on my cigarette. "This is your plan, you figure it out."

He walked around the entrance of the alley, trying to wipe the goo off his arm. The Plant Angels were already starting to stir near the entrance of the alley. The yellow water stuff was bubbling every time they moved. "I don't know," Vash said.

"Too bad," I said a little too cheerfully, "We can't help… let's forget about it." I grabbed his sleeve and ugh, it was the slimy one. "God, Tongari, what's the shit on your arm?"

"It's not shit," he said, sniffing it. "It's nutrient fluid for the sisters in there."

I peered into the tank. There was mostly goo in there with a few chunks of fleshy… er… chunks. Yeah, that's right. They were chunks. Big and grey. "They feed that stuff to your sisters?"

"Yeah," said Vash, nodding in agreement, "That's what they eat."

"What about these grey chunky fleshy chunks?" I said.

"That's redundant," was the first thing he said.

The second was, "Don't touch that."

But it was too late, I had already poked it. One of the Plant Angels in two tubes shrieked and threw herself against the bulb. Vash glared at me. "I told you not to touch it."

"You know me," I said, "But what the hell was that?"

"Those are organs that overgrew the tube and ended up in the nutrient tanks."

"Huh?" I was clueless.

"It's like having your gut at home while you're drinking my beer at my place."

"Gotcha," I said, "But where are my feet?"

"No, I don't think you've got me, but oh well," Vash said and rolled his eyes.

The gooey lumps seemed to pulse in agreement. They then turned over to reveal legs, arms, and tiny sucking mouths. I could feel everything I had this day from my miserable morning to my miserable fruity drink threaten to come back up. "So whatever goes into here, they eat?"

"Basically," Vash said, looking green around the gills, "Although they usually don't have their body parts in the tank. Now, the entrance to the subway is about 1000 feet away."

"Could we run?"

"Not an option at the moment," Vash said, scraping off the last of the ooze.

"Okay," I said, "Why not?"

"Remember how I said there was more than one in each tube?"

I nodded and wished Vash would put the cover back on the nutrient tank.

"Well, if we run through the tunnel, one could smash through the bulb-"

"Wouldn't she die from the effort?"

"Maybe," Vash said, "But then her sisters would climb over her body and attack us."

"So, basically we're screwed."

Vash rolled his eyes. "We're not screwed… we just need to think of a good plan."

I leaned against the wall and drummed my fingers against Cross Punisher. "Okay, thinking, thinking… nope not getting anything- hey!"

That spiky fool grabbed me by the head and started shaking. "Well, think harder… think faster… time… is… of… the… essence!"

Yeah, he said it like that. I finally wrangled my way free and glared at him. "I have no fucking idea and my head now hurts."

"That's good," he said, "Got any ideas?"

"Noooo and thanks to you, I have a headache that could kill a whale. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"That was sarcasm."

He looked at me. "So.."

"No."

Vash shook his head. "God," he said, "You take forever to think."

"I thought you were an atheist."

"Agnostic," he corrected.

"Is there a difference? Hell, let's go get drunk. It never got us wrong. Hell, we can get the ladies in the alley drunk too."

Vash snapped his fingers. "That's it!"

"What's it? Getting drunk?"

He rolled his eyes, "No, getting the ladies in the alley drunk."

"How? Didn't you just say those insane bitches," I pointed to the alley, "Only eat through those… oh… good idea."

Vash shook his head. "It wasn't my idea, it was yours."

"So… lemme guess… I'm thanking myself," I said.

"Bingo," he said.

Vash stared at the goop, so I tried to stare too. The fleshy lumps bobbed up and down, their mouths slurping in liquid. "Ugh. So how are you going to get them drunk?"

"Rem used to give the Plants cough syrup when they got rowdy," he said, "Something about the alcohol in it that made them drunk."

"Cough syrup, huh?"

"Yeah," he said, "I wonder if any place nears us sells it in bulk."

He grinned at me lopsidedly. "Maybe a store or something," I said sourly, wanting to go back home.

"That's a great idea," he said.

Vash looked up down the street before pointing at a corner store on the other end of the block. "How about this one?"

The sign read "Billy and Sons' Corner Store". I scowled. "No way."

"Yes way," Vash said, "If I go in there and buy cough syrup in bulk, they'll wonder."

"Okay," I said, "What's my excuse?"

Vash snorted. "It's for the orphans, obviously."

"Have you ever wondered that you were the only one who got your own plans."

ooo

The account of Nicholas D. Wolfwood cuts off for a period here, since the bottom half of the page he wrote it on was ripped off and the account continues with the following sentence. Obviously, writing about Billy more than once disgusted him. This of course could mean anything.

The account picks up with the minister complaining about Vash making him go back to get cherry flavor since he picked up the regular formula. Then made him go back to get the nighttime formula of Cold X since the daytime formula contained no alcohol.

For all we know, the papers weren't destroyed. We may never know. - Meryl Stryfe, Bernardelli Insurance Society, Morningstar Headquarters.

ooo

"Cherry formula," I growled at him as he poured another bottle of cold medicine into the tank, "I don't think they care if it taste like crap or not."

Vash looked like he wanted to slam the bottle down my throat. "They care."

"Okay," I said, "It was probably a bad idea to get the medicine without looking the first time."

"And the second," he reminded me.

The mouths in the tanks swallowed, lumpy lumps pulsing. "Okay… the second time."

"See anything different?"

I glanced into the alley. It was hard to see through the thick liquid in those tubes and frankly, I was glad I couldn't. It was better on all of us.

Now, I know I probably sound racist, but Plant Angel is a freaky thing when you stop to think about it. Think about a cute, deformed girl. Then stretch out her legs, arms, and ears. Finally give her tumors on her back that look like her headless parasitic twin from hell and a mouth of sharp teeth. Well, I've seen them and I've seen enough of them. She's pretty and she can kill you.

No, I don't hate Vash or the rest of the freeborns. Millions and Nikola excluded. He's a bastard and she's a bitch. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if they were knocking heels.

"See anything different?" Vash said, pouring in two bottles at a time.

"You said that before."

"Well, you didn't answer… so I figured…'

"Well," I snapped, already lighting a new cigarette, "You figure a lot of things. How am I supposed to see into that tube?"

"Well…"

"Look, it's murky and filthy."

Vash poured another two bottles of syrup in. "So, press your face against it."

"Didn't you say that they could shatter those tubes easily?"

Before Vash could answer, a hand pressed against the glass of one of the two tube nearest to us. Two giggling heads pressed themselves against the glass. That's what I assume they were doing. For all I know, they could be plotting our deaths.

"They snarling?"

Vash smiled and walked over to the tube. "Nope… they're drunk and with luck, the rest of them are."

"How do you know?"

The lights in Grigori Alley flickered.

"Actually," Vash said, "I'm just making this up as I go."

"I hate you," I said.

"The feeling is almost mutual," he whispered back.

We entered the alley. It was an eerie dank place and narrow too. But then something landed on my nose as we walked past a group of Plant Angels having drunken sex. If they weren't plants and we weren't where we were, I might have watched it. I reached up and removed a lacey pink bra from my nose.

Vash cracked up.

"Oh shut up," I said.

We both looked up to see laundry strung throughout the alley.

"That seems rather dumb," Vash said.

"Welcome to the city," I said as we reached a door.

"Welcome to the subway," he replied.

…to be continued.


	14. Below and Beneath Part One

XIV. Below and Beneath Part One 

A limo, black as sin, traveled through the streets of the sector that one Millions Knives made his home. It was a glossy thing, cold as stone and silent as death. Perhaps it was a modified hearse or something more sinister. Whatever it was, its cargo was even colder.

Nestled in her warmest fur coat and with the heater turned up to full blast, Tessla shivered. This was no day to be out and about, but obviously her needs were important enough to venture out the cold.

Her mind drifted briefly back to the priest in his worn black suit, clerical collar, and scarf drabbled loosely over his neck paired with some cheap sunglass and a pair of bad shoes. Despite his priestly vestments, he was obviously Eye of Michael… who else would modify a boy that much and place him back into society to go on living as if nothing had happened? She frowned, remembering the time very well. Damn bastard, setting her in such a rotten mood.

Automatically, one of Tessla's hand reached up to her hair where it automatically found one of the black locks scattered throughout. They had barely shrunk from what they had been this morning. In fact, if Tessla figured right, they were growing wider. Damnit, she thought, gritting her teeth, that damn Plant that they performed the last run on must have had barely any energy to do anything.

At the thought of energy, a wave of pain rolled through her head. Damn headaches… it was either because of her body slowly breaking down over the course of the last one hundred and thirty some odd years or… no, that couldn't be it. It wasn't possible. There was no way that could be.

Idly, Tessla chewed on her lower lip. Whatever Gods there might be, they were indeed generous to let a battered body such as hers survive for this long. Well… obviously, the time she had been allowed wasn't enough.

She glared at her driver. "Drive faster."

When she was sure that the driver wasn't paying attention, she hugged herself. Tessla's thin fingers ran over her bony arms and briefly squeezed. She was still there, still herself after all this time. "I am… I am…" Tessla chanted beneath her breath.

Chemotherapy and radiation had killed most of the core cells in both her arms and spinal cord and reduced gate activity to a slow steady drip. Tessla knew that over her lifetime she was slowly, but surely starving to death. She slid back into her seat, reminding herself how much she hated this area of town and hated the hole in wall Knives choose to hole himself up in this century.

Tessla picked at the leather on the seats. It was raining as usual in this area of town, mixed in with grayish snow. No wonder this damn place was called the Grey City. "You okay, Ma'am," the driver asked.

She blinked in confusion and found herself looking at a patch of vomit on the floorboard of the car. The limo driver had one of his hands supporting her chest and another holding her hair back. Tessla didn't remember feeling ill or even vomiting. There was something about seeing her breakfast on the floor that set her off again. She retched for several minutes, bringing up thin watery bile and she was certain that her toenails were mixed in. Finally, she lay back against seats, blearily contemplating the skylight. "Ish pretty," she managed to say to her driver who was busy toweling up her sick. "You ish pretty," Tessla commented, touching his dark blond hair. "Shame you're a human."

Much to her surprise, her driver corrected, "Actually, I'm a Plant like you. Couldn't you feel me?"

Tessla leaned back in her seat and laughed mockingly. "It would be nice if I could feel your presence. What's a Plant like you working at menial labor like this?" She looked at his name tag. "Toby? What sort of name is that?"

"Mine," Toby said. He was either a young Plant or just one with bad skin. Acne peppered his skin; red, puss-filled, and hard. "It's what they named me at the school, Miss Nikola." His voice cracked as he managed to say. "My boss won't like this."

She fluttered her eyelashes as best as she could. "Your boss doesn't need to know," Tessla said in her best seductive voice, tossing the towel out the door and hoping that a human had been hit with it. "These are grown up matters."

It was too easy to be seductive. It wasn't like she had a uterus or ovaries anymore. Besides that if she did and had become pregnant she was sure to dump that brat like most of independent sisters did. It was like that for them… get pregnant, go into labor, chuck the infant into a wastebasket, and go back to their partying as if nothing happened. That's why They (meaning the government) created those damned Plant Schools. The disgusting part was this included hybrids.

Tessla considered herself to be somewhat reasonable. When there were more humans than plants, one couldn't be picky in either gender or species. She just wished that hybrids were slaughtered at birth. You could either be a plant or a human, but you couldn't be both. "Very grown up matters. How old are you?"

"Six years old."

She chuckled and raked a nail over his crotch. "You should be lucky. You'll get to do the first independent Plant ever."

"Ma'am… Ma'am!" Toby squawked, flailing with open hands, trying to get away from her. Even if her looks had been wasted by her lifetimes of illnesses, Tessla was confident that she could still turn any man's head. "I'm your driver."

Tessla chuckled. "Well then, Toby," she said and gave one buttock a hard pinch, "You better drive me to the heights of passion." She gave him a look and pulled the door closed.

ooo

The limo's windows were tinted so Tessla was sure that no one could see what happening inside the vehicle. Even if they could, she was certain her coat and skirt hid most of the thrusts and jerks her hips made as well as how much her clothing had been disarranged in this game of fumble-tumble. She had to take control of the whole affair considering he was such a virgin or hadn't practiced on an experienced woman such as herself.

Pity he only lasted a few minutes. Tessla scowled and lifted herself off of the still panting Toby. Hopefully, he wouldn't notice the few streaks of black near the back of his head. Pity he couldn't have released more than the barest dregs of energy. But he was under a decade old so it couldn't be helped.

Right now Toby's breathing still sounded like train whistle and his rash of acne was even more pronounced. He even had pimples on his buttocks and thighs. "Oh wow," he said, "We can do that again? Right?"

Tessla busied herself in fixing herself up. Her blouse had been shoved halfway up her chest and the last of her brassiere had been ripped to shreds in Mr. Up and Away Limo's driver's eagerness. "Have you ever been with a woman?"

"Me?" Toby asked, pointed to himself. "No… not before. But could we do it again."

He tried to nibble on her neck in what he probably though was passion. Tessla thought it was sickening. "Baby doll?"

"Huh?" What a sickening nickname. Tessla, however, was good at ignoring annoying people and continued inspecting herself. There were scratches and bites on her breasts, Knives wouldn't mind, he knew about her habits. Her stockings were a lost cause and she figured Toby would want to keep the panties as proof to his pals that he had gotten some. "Weren't you supposed to be driving me to my brother's place?"

Tessla rolled her eyes. Pathetic Plant boy thought he was going to be her new lover. Hell with him, if he couldn't keep it up, what was the use? "You're nothing to me." It was more than satisfying to see him burst into tears. "Quit wailing like a little baby… you get a souvenir out of this."

"What?"

She carefully took her discarded underwear and pulled them over the driver's head, adjusting them so his jug-like ears stuck out. Knives probably wouldn't mind her panty-less, it made it easier for him. "I… uh…"

"Get back into the driver's seat and keep driving."

"Yes, Ma'am," he squeaked.

ooo

Knives hardly seemed surprised to see her. Then again, when had Knives been surprised at anything? "Hello," he said, pulling open the door.

"Hello yourself," she snapped back. Knives blinked and then smiled.

"As cheery as ever," he said in return, a bit of sarcasm in his voice. "You look miserable."

Tessla scowled as she dusted snow out of her hair. The oily rain clung to the strands of blonde and black. She knew that it would take several shampooings to get her hair back to normal. "I'm perfectly peachy."

She sauntered into the apartment without waiting for Knives to invite her. She never really did. Tessla never had to ask for something from Knives. Vash on the other hand was always a stuck up little snit who constantly asked her to be polite. Why did she have to be polite when she had gotten a full taste of the world's impoliteness before she turned a year old?

Legato, Knives' latest acquisition, sat in the kitchen, casually stuffing his face. Tessla shuddered and gave a fake smile to Knives. "This must be Legato Bluesummers… how recent is he?"

Knives stared at Tessla. "Legato's been in the background for two years, Tessla." He frowned slightly.

Tessla noticed and filed it away in the back of her mind. "So he did," she lied. "He's so unremarkable, but then again all humans are."

She knew that she would never forget blue hair like that or those cold eyes. Who could? "Once again," Knives said, arms folded in that way that said that she better tell him or else. "What is the matter?"

Tessla pointed to the black streaks in her head.

Knives leaned forward and combed his fingers through her hair carefully. Out of the corner of her real eye, she saw Legato glower. Let him glower, she thought to herself. To Knives, she said, "Notice the difference?"

Much to her disgust, Knives smiled broadly. "No," he said and she could just smack him for that smugness. Before she could, he said, "They've gotten thicker."

Tessla sighed, half in relief, half in annoyance. She snorted and absentmindedly sucked the dried blood that was still caked on one of her gloves. "Joke? Knives, did anyone tell you that you're shitty at humor?"

Knives laughed, a rather harsh-sounding chuckle. "It's called black humor, Tessla. Live with it. Where did the blood come from?"

Tessla sucked on her bloody glovetip for a few more moments. "The latest pet I had called another person 'daddy'. I had to kill it."

"Oh."

He walked over to the kitchen and without being told, Legato rose and walked over to the coffee machine. On his feet, Legato had an odd graceful walk even though he seemed one step away from junkie with his turtleneck sweater and slacks. She had to admit that Legato was extremely handsome in a cold chiseled snake-like sort of way. "What are you looking at?" Tessla asked, feeling as if someone had run his hand over her bare thigh and it took all of her willpower to shudder. "Well, human?"

Legato smirked, a brief flash of white teeth appearing before disappearing underneath his lips. "You."

"Me?"

Legato nodded.

"Is that all the response I'm going to get from you?" she asked, wanting to slap him.

"No." Legato said, "I'm giving you more of a response right now." Tessla gritted her teeth. "It's not the response you want, but I am moving my mouth and tongue. My vocal cords are vibrating and producing a suitable sound. Therefore I respond."

His face returned to its unnatural slackness. "He's something, ain't he?" Knives said.

Knives was laughing. His face was flushed and he was laughing. Laughing at her! "Knives… stop laughing."

Knives wiped a tear from his eye. "Tessla, the things you do to make me laugh. Isn't the right, Legato."

His slave was already nodding like one of those drinking birds. "Yes… very, extremely, much so…"

Tessla saw Knives rub his temples as if he was extremely irritated. He usually did that after calling his brother and usually after they had been arguing, which was most of the time. Therefore, Tessla egged on her younger siblings as best as she could. She knew despite her long life that she was slowly dying. The black hair was proof of that. "Legato?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Shut up."

Legato's gleeful expression disappeared as his lips pressed themselves so thin that they might have been invisible. Tessla almost expect him to say "Shutting up, Master", but he did nothing of the sort. He just stared at her, head ducked down and hiding one eye and making him look even creepier. "He's annoying."

She waited for Knives to nod in agreement. "He's useful."

"He's a human."

"You've had sex with plenty of humans," Knives said and all but added on "You hypocrite" to the end of his sentence.

Tessla bit her tongue in irritation. "Obviously he's different."

ooo

Several levels under the street and several hours ago, Meryl had started to take a sip of her drink when...

Someone had crashed into her spilling her drink over her cape and white clothing. Meryl whirled around, ready to thrash the person who had spilled the drink on her. "Why I…"

It was the boy in the red sweatshirt, smiling sincerely and apologetically at her. In one of his hands, he held a napkin. "Sorry about that."

Meryl took the napkin numbly. She was ready to snap at the boy and here he was being polite. "I'm sorry," she said, "It's been a tough day."

He shrugged casually. "I know what that feels like. It's a good thing that you didn't drink that."

She was about to ask why when Millie jumped in with a "Hi, how are you?"

The boy smiled. It was a kind friendly smile and it was obvious he smiled often when he wasn't trying to start up the first annual tongue hockey tournament with his girlfriend. "I'm fine… I mean… I'm Aaron Waterman." He pointed at the girl who was still sitting. "This is Annie. She doesn't have a last name."

"It's rather silly that she doesn't have a last name," Meryl said, "Who does she think she is? A rockstar?"

At the same time, Millie piped up with an "I like it and the noses have it!"

Meryl massaged her temples, already beginning to feel a headache coming on. "It's the ayes have it and that really has nothing to do with it. This young gentleman-"

"Aaron," the teenage boy said, "But thanks for the gentleman comment."

"Was about to explain why I shouldn't be drinking this soda which he spilled."

She looked in the cup to see the chalky powder that coating the bottom. "He drugged the cups obviously," Aaron said, "He tried the same thing on Annie and me, but Annie hates orange soda."

"Loathe it," Annie added from behind her curtain of tangled hair that could make Millie's usual rat's nest look tame. "So I said to Aaron that I didn't want any and it was all icky looking."

There was a thud to the back of the train. An elderly gentlemen had fallen onto the floor, snoring faintly. A few seconds after that, there was an increase in the number of thuds. "Damn," Meryl said under her breath.

There were three pairs of eyes looking at her. "Well?" her partner and what seemed to be their nearly acquired companions, like it or not, said in eerie unison.

Meryl's head throbbed out the warning of an imminent headache.

"Well?" they asked again.

Meryl gritted her teeth. "Shut up… I am trying to think."

"Well?"

She whirled around in a flurry of fur-trimmed cape. "Shut up! I said I didn't know."

"That's your great plan?" the kid named Aaron said. In Meryl's mind, he was younger than her, therefore he was a kid. "Shut up? My uncle could come up with a better plan and he's an alcoholic." The sarcasm dripped off the kid's words like honey.

"Maybe we should leave them alone if they don't want our help," Annie said, her voice low and nervous sounding.

The train screeched to a halt.

"What are you staring at me for?" Meryl snapped… "We got to hide… now!"

She looked around the subway car. The smooth metal and glass design seemed to provide no shelter from what was obviously going to happen. Suddenly, Meryl spotted a door in the back of the train. "There!" she said and they all scrambled to get into the small closet she had found.

ooo

Which is where they had been for at least an hour, maybe more, in these cramped conditions Meryl couldn't tell… hiding in a broom closet in the back of the subway car. It wouldn't have been so bad if Millie hadn't been squeezed in with the three of them. This meant of course that Millie's breasts were mashed on the top of Meryl's head, because Millie had to duck to fit in. "Ma'am!" Millie said, hugging the closet's three other occupants close to her bosom. "Ma'am! I think they'll find us."

"Someone stepped on my foot," Aaron whispered angrily.

A pause as feet were accounted for.

"That was me," a guilty sounding Annie said, making little shuffle-shuffle noises.

"Oh, baby," Aaron soothed, "I could never hate you."

Meryl rolled her eyes at the murmured "Sweetie" and "I love you so much." and "How much?" "Oh come on," she found herself muttering at the wall of the closet, "They're teenagers." She was barely out of her teens herself. Only twenty-one and already a working girl. "How do they know what they want?"

The last of the footsteps died away. Meryl took a peek outside the closet. There were only a few abandoned cups and bags on the ground… obviously not enough for whoever robbed the train and his men. There were no people left in the subway car save for them. "Damn," Meryl said, looking around, "They really did a number on this place."

She nearly ducked back into the closet at the next creak. Meryl was pretty sure she looked ridiculous to her small audience of three. Millie peeked out, with a teenager shoved under each arm. She looked ridiculous and both Aaron and Annie looked embarrassed. "Ma'am... are we gonna be okay?"

"I don't know," she said, getting her nerve back and walking up and down the hallway. She wasn't sure how to react to something like this.

Damn, how could anyone react to something like this? It was beyond her comprehension how she was supposed to save the day? Derringers were good, but she had a feeling that the fifty tiny guns with their two shots a piece weren't enough in this situation. "I think you can out of the closet now," Meryl said.

Aaron snickered. Yep, he was definitely a teenager boy or in his twenties if he just looked young. He found something like that funny. The boy shrank under Meryl's glare. "Nervous laugh," he said.

His girlfriend, Annie, looked like she was trying not to giggle. The tips of those odd pointed ears of hers were bright crimson. "Yeah," the girl said, "Nervous laugh. Happens all the time when you're nervous. And I guess we're plenty nervous."

Meryl glared at the two of them.

"Okay," Aaron admitted, "That was lame, I guess. But none of us are gay. But maybe we're just really in denial."

She glared at the two of them, willing them to shut up.

"If we're that far back in the closet, maybe we're in Narnia," Annie suggested. "That's the only thing I can think of."

"Say very lame," Meryl demanded, hands on hips.

She looked at the three of them peering out from the closet. Trust a teenager to turn a serious situation like this one into a party. "Look," Meryl said, "Millie and I will investigate what happened."

Millie looked like she wanted to dance. "Yay, ma'am," she chirped, wringing her hands together. "We'll be sure to take down whatever comes our way. Our ship will sail into the great nebulous below and beneath."

ooo

There was something dank and dim about the subway system. Maybe that was why he had decided never to take it. Vash pressed himself as close to the curved wall as possible while he held his nose with the other.

It was beyond him how anyone could deal with that stench of rotting fecal matter and chemicals. Vash was mostly trying to keep from throwing up. "Wolfwood, you holding up fine?"

Wolfwood didn't seem phased at all, to tell the truth. He walked casually down the catwalk that hugged the subway tunnel, that damned cloth-wrapped crossed casually peeking over one shoulder. There he goes, Vash thought, as full of himself as ever. Maybe those cigarettes had killed off his sense of smell.

Wolfwood stank at many things; chess, paying for his half of the pizza, cards. He also just plain stank. Vash had a more sensitive than usual nose and when Wolfwood was around, he suffered for it.

"It smells like shit in here!" Wolfwood proclaimed loudly as if reading a sermon. It may have been the subway's structure that was making him sound so loud. "What do you think?"

Vash thought about it and decided to be sarcastic. "I think that's just you," he said.

Wolfwood snorted in amusement. "Well if it's just me than you won't mind if I light a cigarette." His hand was moving toward the pocket of his coat. "After all it's not like that stink is from any fumes."

Damn, why did that man have to do things like that? Wasn't he a man of god? Even though Vash himself had no ties to religion and not many ties period, he had a good idea of how religion worked and he wasn't sure that Wolfwood's behavior was appropriate. "Do you do shit like that around the kids?"

"Shut up," Wolfwood said, rolling his eyes before he fished out a mangled cigarette. "Besides that… hell no. Television does worse. What the hell is that?"

Vash squinted, "What the hell is what?"

It curved out of the wall, a foreboding glass shape. Vash didn't have to take a second glance to realize that there was a power plant station coming up. He had almost forgotten that the sisters were installed below ground in addition to being above the streets. Mentally, he slapped himself for forgetting.

She was thin, almost brittle looking with translucent skin that seemed grayish in the dim light of the subway tunnel. She could have been old, she could have been young, he didn't know, his kind were ageless. "Holy," Wolfwood whistled as the Plant blinked and stared at him, "What's a Plant doing down here?"

Vash shrugged. Automatically, the Plant in the bulb shrugged back and then made a little cooing noise. Vash wasn't surprised, none of the sisters in the bulbs had properly formed vocal cords. "Back up generator," he said, guessing, "Or someone forgot about her."

The Plant pressed herself eagerly against the surface of the bulb although the muscle in her face barely registered any emotion. Knives said that the Plants were very capable of emotion and said he had gotten one to respond to him. Vash remembered telling him that he hoped it was not in a sexual way and Knives had gotten angry. "Just shut up, Vashu," he said with that annoying nickname even though the lisp that plagued him as a child was gone.

Seeing this lone Plant below ground proved his theory. His sisters were good mimics and nothing more. He hated being right. Her bony fingers pressed against the glass and her eyes, pinkish and wide stared straight into space. A plague near her read "Plant IN2141KEY18 Model 18.1. "Do you mind if I call you Pinky?"

Wolfwood snorted and lit up the cigarette. "Does she listen to you?"

Incredibly, the place hadn't blown up, so apparently all the air did was reek. "No," Vash said and stroked the glass. "But I'm sure Pinky wants to listen to our voice."

A cloud of smoke was snorted out of Wolfwood's large and hairy nostrils. "Maybe she thinks you're an idiot."

Vash pounded his fist against the thick glass of the bulb. Pinky shrunk back and hissed, showing off her impressive and deadly teeth. "She doesn't think about anything. How could she? How can she?"

Wolfwood gave him a look that clearly said, "You're an idiot, Tongari." He leaned over and tapped on the bulb. "You're a freaky little dumbass, aren't 'cha?" Pinky twisted her head from side to side, trying to find out where the noise came from. "Trapped in your little glass bubble, nice and safe from us."

The plant twisted around, ears flattened against her head. She shrieked for a few moments, before growling lowly and pulling herself back into the inner core, trails of slime suspended in the thick mist of the outer core where she had pulled herself back in fleshy center. The plant looked like a giant light bulb once more. Vash glared at Wolfwood. "I want you to know that I blame this on you."

Wolfwood snorted smoke out his nose. "Me?" He pointed at himself with the cigarette and singed his scarf. "Me? Who the hell wanted to come down here? You!" He pointed at Vash to emphasis his point. "Who disturbed little miss freak-a-dinking freak show! You!"

Vash growled. "Me? Who tapped on the bulb? Lemme guess, you used to tap on the goldfish tank at the doctor's office even when you could clearly read the sign that said don't touch."

"Buh?"

He felt his jaw drop open and he was sure it was resting on his collarbone from Wolfwood's 'buh' sound. "What? No one take you to the doctor's office?"

There was only a shrug from Wolfwood. "Not any with fish tanks. So where are we supposed to go next?"

"I don't know," Vash said sourly, "I don't make it a habit to go spelunking." Wolfwood snickered. "And I told you before that I'm not gay. Spelunking as in sewer exploration." He walked around the room, checking for a map. "Say spelunking and his mind goes into the sewers."

Wolfwood shrugged. "You don't want to people to think you're gay? Well, stop walking like a fag."

Vash was able to find a terminal and start typing into it. Okay… first he had to go to the main menu or was it tools and ops? Damn OS was a dinosaur even compared to him, which probably meant Pinky was both ancient and a back up generator. "I don't walk like a fag," he finally said.

Much to his irritation, Wolfwood leaned over him and puffed smoke in his face. "Then how come you needed ten seconds to reply?"

Coughing slightly, Vash managed to reply. "Because I was trying to ignore you."

"But you aren't ignoring me," Wolfwood gleefully pointed out.

Vash sighed and managed to open a map of the sewer and subway system. "This place is a maze. Someone wasn't planning."

Wolfwood whistled, sounding almost impressed. "This is a real cluster fuck, ain't it?"

Resist the temptation to roll your eyes, Vash told himself. "It's not a cluster fuck… it's a puzzle."

He turned his attention back to the map and sighed. This rescue mission was going to be harder than he thought.

…to be continued


	15. Below and Beneath Part Two

XV. Below and Beneath Part Two

"This is a real cluster fuck, ain't it?" I asked.

Vash squinted at the screen and rolled his eyes, although he probably didn't know he just did that. "It's not a cluster fuck… it's a puzzle."

I poked at the screen and ended up dropping my cigarette. Not willing to pick it up, I simply ground it out with my heel. "Cluster fuck," I argued, since I was really good at making a point. And the point happened to be… "You have no idea what you're doing. Do you?"

He scowled at me like I was the reason for him getting his panties in a twist. "I would if you would just shut up."

Vash proceed to pound the console with his fist. Didn't I call that? Getting his panties in a twist. He stared into space and began to… I swear I'm not making this up… drool. You can't get better than this. "I'm not shutting up."

And he sighed like it was all my fault. "I can't let them injured in any way. I put them on the subway… those two pretty girls. Those poor hot babes."

Okay, so why should I even give a rat's ass about Them? The beer in the fridge means I shouldn't give a damn. So does every channel of porn in existence. Vash makes me do this rescue mission and the chicks see me as a softie. Maybe that sounds like a good thing, but in the long run they expect you to go see chick flicks with them. The kind that are called My Best Friend's Gay College Slumber Party in Paris or something like that. The kind that no guy has or should be caught watching.

"These hot babes better have huge tits or I'm leaving," I said.

Vash looked up from the keyboard he was inspecting at the moment. "Huge tits do not a hot babe make."

I reminded my self to punch the bastard later as he was clearly asking to be punched hard. "Huge tits make hot babes and don't you forget it," I growled back.

He tried to ignore me and went around the room, flipping switches and pretty much guessing shit. Typical stuff for Vash and I guess in his head that made lots of sense. I hoped that he would explain it to me, because I was getting rather confused by all of this. "Ooh, extra Plant here."

"Huh?"

Vash jabbed at a point on the screen. "That lump there is Pinky. To the right of here is a nutrient tank. And to the right of that is-"

"Porn," I interrupted. "Lots and lots of porn to read while your snowstorm rages above. We don't have to do this."

He gave me a long appraising glare, mulled over his options, and thumped me with his fist upside the head. Pinky had already crept outside her gooey center core and was looking at us as well as she could with wide pink eyes. "I think we should check it out. It may be another Plant. Pinky doesn't think about anything other than food."

"That close together?"

Vash snorted out of amusement. "Grigori Alley," he said, rolling his eyes. "Grigori Alley, Wolfwood."

Which I really didn't care about. I didn't care about the poor fools he had obviously put in danger, it was his fault and he should have to deal with them. Not me. And yet you're here with him.

Only because he would have fallen into the sewer, I mentally argued back to that nagging voice in the corner of my mind that sounded like a cross between Livio and Vash. And at the moment for a few seconds, I hated both of them.

I wasn't sure that he even knew that he was sounding like a complete asshole. "Perfect," I muttered. "Just perfect. Aren't we supposed to be rescuing…"

Vash paused and twacked himself in the forehead with a gloved hand. "Shitshitshit," he hissed and half-whined. "Those people on the train and stuff…"

"Oh so NOW you remember those people on the train and stuff," I mocked back, "Time to put the nookie on hold."

"I wasn't going to have sex with that Plant…"

"No… you were going to make lo-o-ve…"

"Wolfwood, shut up."

"You were going to get it on."

"Wolfwood for the love of all things holy and unholy…"

"Rocking the casaba, holstering the magnum, fitting the square peg in the round hole…"

"Who's in there?" an unknown voice croaked out.

Vash and I immediately stopped arguing. At first, both of us thought that the other was playing a trick. "What the hell was that about?" Vash snapped at me, "I'm creeped out as it is."

All I could was glare back at Vash. "That was a girly sound, smartass."

He bit his lip and chewed on it for a few minutes. When he finally spoke, he sounded like he a swallowed a toad. "I think we should leave this place and go back to saving the subway."

"What? Why?" I tried not to crack up, "Tongari, you lose your nerve or something?"

Vash did and I swear I'm not making this up, one of those full body shudders. Then I saw what was behind the barely closed door. If I wasn't a man, I'd have pissed myself. That scary, that disgusting. We walked through and found ourselves in a room lined with rusting computers and a tube that went at least six feet in the floor and in the ceiling. The Plant filled the cylinder entirely although its small feet hung in space.

It stared, or at least I though it stared, at us through its filthy tangles of long hair. It was a plant with more deformed limbs than what normally goes on a plant. It had the usual extra pair of limbs clinging to its back, but underneath its arms were two extra arms. All four hands were tipped with long curly nails. "What are you?" I heard Vash say and the plant actually smiled with long, broken yellow and brown teeth. "What the hell are you?" The Plant tilted her head back and silently laughed a long trail of floating bubbles in whatever goo she had been dunked in.

I didn't get it. "Wait a minute," I said, yanking on Vash's ear as he tried to bat my hand away from it, protesting something about me hurting his piercing. "Plants in bulbs can't talk." The Plant seemed to smirk in agreement, damned angel. "This can't be the thing that spoke."

"It did… ouch ouch ouch…" Vash whined, batting at my hand and looking put off. "I swear to God, it's attached."

Pinky's sister was watching us now. Her hand went to push away her hair from her very human appearing eyes with an echo of a pupil and iris under a thick film of white. "Isn't she blind? How can she-"

"See us?" Vash interrupted and pointed to a camera in the corner. "See that?" I nodded and he continued. "She's a database. Besides she's not as nearly blind as the rest of them."

"Come again?"

Vash shook his head and glared at me like he thought I was an idiot. Come to think of it, I am on most things, I'm probably not the person who should be telling you all this. I probably am an idiot. Big fat deal, huh. "What the hell is a database?"

He looked thoughtful. "Well… that is… a database… hmm… you see…"

"You have no idea how to explain what the damn thing is."

Vash didn't have the nerve to look the slightest big embarrassed. The bastard shrugged. "Well, it's not my fault."

"Uh-huh, keeping telling yourself that."

"Shut up," the voice said again, this time coming from a pair of speakers set next to a flickering hologram of a woman, "I can't concentrate on my favorite show."

The Plant was smiling even more, turning its head in a mocking manor. Okay, so it was a she, but there was something genderless about it at the same time even with those very female breasts. "Was that you?" Vash asked. Rather dumb question, I think, last time I checked, I still suck at ventriloquism. He walked over and looked at the Plant. "That WAS you. You…"

"I don't think she'd going to answer," I began to say, "Being a bi-"

It hissed at me and pointed over to a small table where a small hologram stood, only a few inches tall. The holographic woman stood, more disgusting than the Plant in her filthy, watery prison. "I know that I am a bitch," the hologram said, looking at us through her filthy bangs, in that exact voice the subway AI tended to you, "Bloody old news to me." She grinned, a six-inch high bag lady and six times as crazy. "I want to watch him take over the subway and make it his kingdom."

Vash rushed up and pressed his face right against the glass so he could stare in. I yanked him back just as her clawed hand broke through the glass of her bulb with a gush of putrid fluid. Vash looked horrified and cried out in shock. Even though the Plant's arm was lacerated and large blood-covered shards were embedded within her grey flesh, she still managed to wave. "Who the hell are you talking about?" I demanded, pulling her through the bulb and lacerating her face.

"Stop it," Vash said. When he didn't think I heard him, he started trying to pull me away. "You're hurting her."

The Plant tried to twist away and snap my arms off. "You don't even know what her name is and you want to protect her?"

She looked away for a moment; I followed her gaze to a nameplate that read "Technical Collection Military Unit - 07. "I am called July," the Plant said from the speakers. "There are eleven TechCom Military Grades also like myself." She spat a rotten jagged tooth at me and glared. "Let us go."

"Not a chance," I said.

"Wolfwood," Vash said warning, "I don't think she knows all that much."

July laughed as us, mouth snapping off a molar with each horrible giggle. "He's right."

"What?"

Vash, you really don't need to get shocked with someone like that. I know I'm not. That Plant can be summed up with what's wrong with this whole damn world. Who makes something like that? July lunged at him and he didn't move. With a sudden calm evenness he put his hand in a coat pocket and removed the pair of shades. With a quickness to put any movie gunslinger to shame, he slipped on the shades and gazed at July with an unreadable expression on his face.

July would have taken his face off; I saw the way her jaws moved. I could no longer see if Vash blink, but not a muscle twitched. July's teeth snapped shut a mere inch from his nose. The tumor-like fetus shapes on her back and all of those cords attached into her scalp and along her neck and arms kept her from getting out of her bulb more than a few feet. The flesh on her many limbs had been lacerated by the glass of her bulb, but somehow she managed to remain awake. I didn't see how, I could see glimpses of pale bone beneath mangled muscle. Vash regarded her with a cool expression on his face, something I didn't know the goofball of a crybaby could manage. "You…" echoed from the speakers.

"You're not going to hurt me," Vash said evenly and for a second even yours truly believed him. "Or him."

"Vash, you idiot!" I snapped. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" My hands shook as I retrieved my lighter and cigarette. It took me a few fumbling tries, but I lit one and held it up to my mouth and took several deep puffs. "What kind of fool are you, Tongari?"

Vash didn't even give me the slightest glance and kept his eyes locked with the blank gummy eyes of July. Apparently Vash was that sort of fool who didn't blink when faced with that. I would have, plus, I would have backed away. "I need to know what is happening. Tell me... I know you're in pain and I can make it stop. All you have to do is tell me… what happened to that subway train."

The Plant looked down and picked at one of the more deeply embedded sharps in her right breast. With a his and a grunt, she was able to slightly pull the glass thorn out before it hooked on her breast. "Don't do that," Vash said and before I could do anything, Vash had moved the one foot needed for him to get into July's range.

July struck with the speed of a viper and lunged for Vash's neck. He turned at the last minute and her teeth sunk through the thick fabric of his coat into his shoulder. His glasses were pushed half-up his forehead. His lips were moving even as the red of his coat turned a deeper shade around July's teeth. "Vash! Jesus!"

He turned his head; eyes squeezed shut in pain. "Don't worry about me," he gasped before he stroked July's back. It was a hard move since all four of her arms were wrapped around him squeezing him so tight it was a wonder that his ribs didn't snap. Vash bit his lip and continued to stroke July's back. "There, there."

"I hate you! Hate you!" came the voice from the speakers, hateful and hoarse with rage. "Let me go, damn you son of a bitch!

I held the cigarette tightly in my hand. Before I could even think, I had run across the room and jammed the lit end against the Plant's back. July screamed, her arms breaking their hold on Vash allowing me to pull him back to the corner of the room. He stood there in shock, sunglasses bent out of shape, July's rotten molars still embedded in his shoulder. "What kind of fool are you, Wolfwood?" Vash snapped, tossing my own words back in my face in a mocking version of my accent.

"The kind of fool that saved you from that!" I snapped, "You can't sugarcoat this! That bitch is working for the enemy!"

"I don't care!" Vash snapped, pulling a monstrous fang out of his shoulder before closing his eyes for a few minutes. The rest of the embedded teeth popped, clattering on the floor, each filmed with a thin layer of Vash's blood. "Everyone's ticket to the future is always blank!"

I backhanded him sound hard that the sound echoed through the tunnels. His glass flew across the room and shattered against the wall. July snickered, blood dripping from her wounded mouth. I had enough of that damned meaningless junk… if he wanted to save these people; he was doing a horrible job of it. "What is that supposed to mean? You were supposed to get her to tell us where the subway train is, because she knows."

Vash rubbed the bruise already forming on his face, a scowl already settling there. "That's what I was trying to do. She doesn't know what she does."

"Like hell she doesn't know!" I snapped back. "She damn well knows what she's doing and she doesn't care as long as someone dies. That's what happens every time one of those subway trains disappears. There are survivors and dead people who are never seen again." I looked at July, her massive bulk too heavy and her legs too withered to even hope to stand. "He feeds the corpses to you, doesn't he?"

July's voice crackled through the speaker, "Oh I wish he did." It sounded like the murmur of a lover. "Oh I wish he did."

Vash looked like he was trying not to throw up. I slammed her bulk against the shattered hull of her bulb. I could hear shrieking and thudding, but had no idea where the sound was coming from. Vash glanced out the door, his face set with grim concern. "It's Pinky," he said flatly, "She's trying to escape, because YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL HER SISTER!" The last part was screamed out in rage.

He tore out of the room just as there was an horrific crunch and tickling sound. I kept all four of July's arms pinned behind the growths on her back. There was no way I was going to let her get one up on me. July whimpered, as all four of her arms were dislocated at the joint. The smell of urine came from the lumps on her back, which looked rather slimy now.

"God, Pinky, don't do this!" Vash screamed from the other room and I slammed July's head again a bulkhead.

Like magic, her eyes slid closed as I picked up Cross Punisher and ran in the other room. If July woke up, I wouldn't want her to pick up my weapon and figure out how to work it. Vash stood there, biting his lower lip bloody. Pinky's brittle body was in his arms, her head nearly severed from her neck. Blood still pulsed from the severed arteries as if Pinky was so stupid that even in death she still defied logic. Even her limbs twitched though her spinal cord was in two pieces. "What the hell?"

"She panicked when you started threatening July. Pinky did what July did, but the glass from her bulb went through her throat. She's all but at death's door," Vash mumbled, "The only thing keeping her alive is her life support."

"So turn it off," I snapped. I could see her windpipe and her withered vocal cords flexing. "Just let her die."

Vash held Pinky's mangled bleeding corpse closer. "She's family… what would Rem say?"

I slammed the Cross Punisher into what I assumed was the Plant's control panel. It worked because Pinky's body jerked once and was still. "Rem's not around… so there's your answer."

He looked at Pinky's blood smeared face, the closed mouth and eyes making her look like a malnourished human teenage girl. He slowly lowered Pinky's body to the floor and lined her head up with her neck. Her hair/feathers were now a flat black color like the Plant last-runned in Central Park. Vash's mouth opened and closed without him uttering anything. "Look, if you hadn't been stupid none of this would have happened," I snapped at him.

"I was getting information for your information," he finally said, fists clenched by his side. Vash looked over at the corpse. "God, Wolfwood, I know I could have saved her."

"Stop treating every woman like Rem!"

Vash leaned against the wall and laughed bitterly. "Is this what you think I'm doing? By helping the girls, I'm helping Rem?" He looked down at his boots and shuffled. "Maybe I am, but that doesn't mean I should stop helping out people in need. I hope… well… I think that Rem would be happy with what I'm doing… helping people out. I just can't stand back and let the injustices of the world go on and on-"

"Damnit, Vash," I interrupted him, hand raised ready to punch, "Stop going on and on about this bullshit. It's not going to help us as you whine over a dead Plant."

Vash slammed his hand against the wall. "Don't you mean poor dead girl, preacher man? What sort of priest denies the dead rest?" He gritted his teeth. "I should have just saved the girls on my own."

"On your own? Don't make me laugh. You would be dead."

He snorted out of disgust. "I have some idea of who it is. A man named Brillant Dynamites Neon. Know him?"

I shook my head. "I know of him, I don't know him."

And I hope that we can just rescue the hostages and never have to meet him. I shook my head. "I have no idea why I even let myself get dragged into this. I'm going to beat the info out of July."

"Well, I'm not going to stick around!" Vash snapped, "Not for someone who needs to beat a poor defenseless Plant-"

"That almost ripped your throat out!" I interrupted. "Don't tell me you know where…"

"I have an idea," Vash said and pointed to the map. "He's somewhere in the abandoned tunnels. You on the other hand, can stay here. There's no way you can go back to the surface with the weather. You'd freeze to death in seconds."

I pounded against the wall. "Damnit, Tongari, you fool… the only person who has any… any idea where BDN is… well…" I pointed to the other room. "She's in that room and she knows damned well where that bastard is!"

Vash stared at me. "I… I… I just don't know, Wolfwood. You're too hardheaded and too hair-trigger. It was a mistake bringing you along, but damn it, I though that you could help." He clenched his fists in anger. "I really did."

"I didn't even want to come along, but you blackmailed me."

I leaned against the wall, just daring him to punch me or something like that. I wasn't prepared for what happened next.

Vash just shook his head and walked out the door. I waited for a comeback, anything, but Vash was too hardheaded to admit I was right. And I was too hardheaded to admit… why did I need to admit anything, I'm still right on this to this day.

I heard low groaning from somewhere. I looked around for anything that could create that sound. The Plant Pinky, there was no way she was making that sound with a severed voice box. Not unless the dead could speak. I nudged the body. Nothing happened. I still wasn't convinced and with a twitch of my fingers, Cross Punisher activated. I emptied a few rounds into Pinky's body at close range. The Plant's abdomen split open and loops of pale intestine spilled out. She had no stomach, bladder, or kidneys. The back of her abdomen was open and the intestines spilled out through that hole. The odd things were the roundish red objects in her belly on either side of her spine. The largest one was wedged under what appeared to be a second spine branching off from her main. I was about to inspect these orbs more closely when I heard the moan again.

And it was coming from the other room.

"Shit," I cursed out loud, "She's waking up."

I ran into the room, my cigarettes spilling from my pocket. I didn't stop to pick them up. It didn't matter if I would curse it later; July was waking up. I looked at the Plant struggling to stand. Her legs were wasted from years, maybe decades of not standing. She looked at me with her filmy nearly human eyes. "You can see me, can't you? Just blurry."

She didn't answer from the speakers, she just growled. Pinky dying had killed the power to her display thingie. She turned her head and tried to push herself over to my location. The floor was covered with a pool of blood. July's back was drenched in it. She had ripped herself free of most of those twisted bodies on her back.

July gurgled in anger.

"You can't do anything. You're too weak."

"You…" July gurgled. It was weak and barely understandable. "You…"

"Enough of you," I said, bringing her up to meet my stare. "You are going to tell me where the passengers are."

She grinned weakly. "Muh… muh… muh… ache me," she rasped out, her voice hoarse and crackling. She wasn't going done without some sort of fight.

Under the film of cataracts, her pupils were dilated and fixed. I had given July a severe concussion. She swayed and giggled like a drunk now, rubbing her hands up and down her body. "Tell me," I repeated and picked her up with one, giving her a good shake.

The giggles rippled through her body like waves. She obviously thought it was funny that I couldn't get an answer out of her. She was dead wrong. I brought my foot down on one of her hands, causing her to howl in pain. "I'm not going to move my foot until you tell me where he is. You got that, July?"

July struggling, broken nails clawing useless at my leg. I stomped down on another hand and bore down my weight. Her other two hands clawed weakly as if the pain was holding her back. "Lemme go," she gasped, "Lemme go."

"Only if you tell me what you know."

"No!"

Her free hands shot for my legs. I grabbed them both in one hand and squeezed. July howled in pain. "Tell me what you know!"

"Fu… fu…"

"That better not be some cursing, little lady," I drawled, "Or I break your fingers into pulp."

July trailed off into silence. After a moment, she said, "Fu… fu… fu-ine. Buh… an…dge muh back."

"Only if you don't attack me," I replied. I opened and closed the machine gun on the Cross Punisher to prove my point. "You got it, July?"

July closed her gummy looking eyes and titled her head back. She stayed in that position for several minutes. She was weighing the damages I had inflected on her body. Two of her hands were severely bruised, possibly even broken. Her other two hands were already on their way to lightly bruised. Her body was lacerated, her mouth, already in a pitiful state, dripped with blood, and blood and bile dripped from the wound in her back. "If you don't help me, I don't help you," I pointed out. "And from that wound in your back, you're going to bleed to death."

"Puh-in-key… sa-ve-uh meh," July gasped out.

"Pinky can't save you. She'd dead."

July closed opened her eyes. "Suh-is-ter Puh-in-key de-e-e-aah-duh?" she quavering. "No-uh."

"And how are you supposed to walk?" I asked, jerking her up by her hair to view her own withered legs. "All those years… no… decades of not walking rendered your legs useless. And last time I checked, months was all it took to render someone who did walk useless. And you, you've never walked so you're helpless."

She looked up at me. "O… k." she said slowly in that annoying quavering voice.

There were no bandages so I searched the room for anything and found a sack and a roll of electrician's tape. If anything, I could stuff her extra legs in the bag and hold her mangled insides… well, inside. I slapped duct tape over the bag and wrapped it around her to form a seal. I expect her to bit, but July's stony expression remained in place. I would prefer an open crybaby like Livio that this.

I pulled the tape tight and heard a whimper escape her lips. Good, so there was a woman behind the shell. Good. "Tell me what you know."

In a quavering voice, she told me what she knew. BDN had been looking for a way into the lesser secure pathways in the subway system. She, July, had been left to rot as what most people believe was the subway's AI. When Brilliant Dynamites Neon had come, she knew that she a found a source of amusement. She would send those fools on a merry path of torture. She had shown him several ways into the subway, including the entrance to Grigori Alley. And no, she didn't hear the thoughts of other Plants; being a database Plant prevented her from doing so most of the time. But, why did that matter… she knew what she knew. And that was that BDN lived in the abandoned grandest of the grand stations and was that enough?

"Yeah and you're coming with me," I said.

I pulled out several pieces of tape and bound her limbs together. "Lemme go," July protested.

"You lost that right when you bit my buddy," I snapped, "Come on, July. We're going to save the day before that idiot kills himself."

…to be continued.


End file.
